


Keith³

by Chestnut_Tears



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (also a bit of bamf lance later on), ? kind of, ??? maybe if i manage to include it you might have to persuade me, ???? - Freeform, Alien Cultural Differences, Alternative Season 3, BAMF Lance (Voltron), Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Black Paladin Lance (Voltron), Drugs, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lion Swap, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Smut, Team Bonding, They will get there eventually, anything else i will include in the notes, blade of marmora, eventually, for medicinal use!!!!, homesick Lance, i will talk about that more in the notes when it comes up, it might get smutty idk, it starts from season 2, klance, lance being cute, lotor - Freeform, or should i say moons, other alien planets, quite a few, slav, that will feature later on too, the weird spirit realm that Shiro and Zarkon fought in, too many tags now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-04 22:56:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chestnut_Tears/pseuds/Chestnut_Tears
Summary: Altean deep space exploration expeditions did not just exist under King Alfor's reign. There were allies that Zarkon did not know about, allies that were never affected by the rise of the Galran Empire, allies that have been living with Altean technology for 10,000 years.As the Paladins attempt to think outside of the box in order to resolve tensions between opposing sides in ancient disputes, will their encounters (mainly Keith's) with this technology go as smoothly?Back in the Galran Empire, how will Lotor attempt to find Voltron?And where is Shiro?





	1. Put That Thing Back Where It Came From Or So Help Me

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Voltron and the characters n shit belong to Dreamworks and any dialog i took from season 3 (later on) as well. I guess only the random moons and aliens i made up are mine (and the plot?)

“Paladins, I know we’re still adjusting to…”

Allura faltered, searching for the right words.

“… Shiro’s absence but we must build our strength and start recruiting allies while the Blade scout out the condition of the Galra Empire now that Zarkon has been defeated. Since we’ve got no further trying to locate the rebels Pidge discovered rescuing her brother, Coran and I think that we have found a suitable place to start.”

The map of a large planet filled the room, surrounded by various moons. It reminded Keith of Jupiter.

“The peoples that live on the moons of Quadra were known to Altea long ago as fearsome warriors, discovered by one of my grandfather’s deep space exploration expeditions. Although they lived in relative peace over 10,000 years ago, in order to keep trading with Altea, they now seem to be caught in civil war again. Paladins, if we can resolve the tensions between each of these moons I am certain they will all ally with Voltron.”

"Cool, sounds easy enough. When do we get there?" Lance said, idly examining an irregularly shaped moon floating above his left shoulder.

Allura straightened slightly, as if she'd planned more than a simple answer to Lance’s question already.

"Actually Lance, it's not that simple. We’ll have to go about this carefully, each tribe is rather… sensitive and easily provoked-"

"How easily is easily provoked?" Interrupted Hunk, scratching his neck "What if we don't get their special handshake right? What? Will they try and kill us?"

"Yes that's actually quite possible" Coran said cheerfully "they are all very particular about each moon's unique traditions! As fussy as nesting klappatifs!"

Lance sighed loudly.

"Well bagsy not going with Keith then"

####

"I still can't believe I got put with you"

Keith rolled his eyes.

"I mean Pidge and Allura are on that really techy planet, that's fine" Lance threw his hands in the air dramatically "But Coran and Hunk are practically having a beach party on a tropical moon!"

Huffing in indignation, Lance crossed his arms, scowling stubbornly around the tent.

Keith’s eyebrows pinched together, half out of confusion the other half in amusement.

"Lance, you know exactly why you have to be here-"

"Yea yea frozen moon, blue lion, ice powers, yada yada." He waved his hand dismissively in Keith’s face, "I don't understand why you have to be here though. Surely Pidge would be the better choice since she can actually fit in the tents.”

Keith shrugged awkwardly.

He could never tell if Lance genuinely hated him. He always acted like he did but when it really came down to it, they were a good team.

But he did have to admit that Lance’s argument was, at least, partially logical.

The Glalüy people that lived here were surprisingly small in stature, a similar height to the Erusians back on Altea, and generally moved around on all 6 stubby legs. Keith was glad the Glalüy were more hug-averse then the Erusians.

Naturally, the warm tents they lived in were just as small as the Glalüy. Even in the largest tent, the armoury, their heads touched the fabric ceiling.

“Oh hey Keith look, these cubes are just like those Olcari ones”

Keith turned to look as Lance slid over to a stack of shelves and plucked a black cube from the top. His eyes widened in alarm.

“Lance put it back!”

The cube lit up in Lance’s palm, bright pink and humming softly.

“What? No! Look I bet it’s a cool robot like Rover, do you reckon I could keep it?”

“We are in a weapon store,” Keith hissed, stepping slowly towards Lance “on a moon inhabited by small dangerous people, _who will attack us if we break any rules_ , waiting to speak to their chief. And you. Pick up a cube. Which we have no idea what it does! And think that’s perfectly okay!?”

“Okay well-”

“It could be some kind of space grenade for all we know!”

“When you put it like that, fine. But c’mon man I was just curious!”

Lance stared at him with wide eyes.

“Just put it back Lance, the ambassador will be here any minute now”

Sighing exaggeratedly, Lance placed the cube back on the shelf where it stopped humming, simply flashing occasionally.

And just as Lance turned around, the tent flap billowed open and the sturdy ambassador scampered in, rigorously shaking themselves in the entrance-way

(Rule one of Glalüy: Always greet others appropriately with a shake and a bow, mostly to ensure there’s no snow on your fur but also to avoid duelling to the death. Fairly simple)

After shimmying into a low bow, the ambassador straightened up and stared at the ceiling above them.

(Rule two of Glalüy: Only make eye contact when you wish to express the desire to fight or mate. A bit difficult since the Glalüy have 6 eyes.)

“The Chief’s tent has now been modified so that you will be able to enter.” They said, “Though you will have to enter one at a time, so one of you please follow me”

Keith and Lance both turned to each other, only remembering not to make eye contact at the very last second.

Staring at the still flashing cube, Keith found himself fumbling awkwardly.

Thankfully Lance swept into the formal reactionary bow and followed the ambassador out of the tent, throwing a wink and thumbs up over his shoulder as he left.

Feeling mildly embarrassed for reasons he wasn’t sure of, Keith was left on his own.

The cube’s flashing got faster.

Embarrassment forgotten, Keith backed away slowly.

It got faster still.

Keith took a deep breath.

Suddenly the cube lifted into the air. It flew straight towards his face. Keith raised his arm to deflect but at the last second it whizzed to the side.

Before Keith could follow it behind him, the cube smacked against the base of his skull.

####

The first thing Keith became aware of was that he was staring at his reflection, sprawled on the ground across the room.

The second was that he could no longer feel anything.

And the third thing he became aware of was that he wasn’t staring at his reflection, he was staring at _himself_.

Because he wasn’t in his body anymore.

He was in the cube.

Trying not to panic, Keith took deep breaths… which didn’t do anything… because he was in the cube.

The ambassador rushed into the tent, closely followed by a fearful Lance who immediately kneeled by Keith’s side. Keith’s body’s side.

He tried to shout... which didn’t work… because he was in the cube.

He did, however, flash. Which caught Lance’s eye for a second, but he quickly turned to Keith’s unconscious body, checking it over.

Lance’s face was contorted with worry, the ambassador flitted fretfully around him, and Keith was right there. _He was right there._

Just in the cube.

Lance hoisted Keith’s body into his arms and the ambassador hurried to the entrance, fussing with the tent flaps.

Panic filled Keith’s mind. They were going to leave _without him_.

The cube could move. He knew the cube moved, it had quiznaking hit him in the back of the head. He just had to work out how to move the damn cube. Right now.

Concentrating hard, Keith imagined he was flying Red. But he was Red. And Red was also this cube. Which was heading straight towards Lance.

_Which was actually heading straight towards Lance oh quiznak how did he stop_

He smashed into Lance’s shoulder.

Jumping round, Lance snatched Keith from the air and then stuffed him into the collar Keith’s paladin armour, hidden from view.

Muttering, Lance carried Keith out of the tent.

“A space grenade is still useful Keith”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to finish this before season 3 but here we are with season 4 coming out soon and this probably won't be finished for then but I'm starting to post it because I've finally come up with an ending for this monster.  
> season 3 was also amazingly helpful for me coz i had a bit of a block so i used it more then i planned (you will start to see the similarity later on)  
> I've actually written most of it but there are still chunks I need to fill in and the rest I need to read over but I plan to keep updating this regularly (for at least a while until I hit a chunk I haven't finished). So far I've got 20,000 words written so woohoo (but I'm also so busy atm)I have no idea how to add chapters and shit but I'll work that out as I go along. I'll also just try and tag everything now coz idk if i can add tags along with later chapters so?????  
> Please please please leave kudos and comments it will help me a lot in trying to finish the rest of this fic (I've already spent 80 hours on it according to word fuq me)  
> Thanks for reading and much love to anyone that leaves kudos/comments :')


	2. Running is a great way to clear up last night's bad choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't ask me to name chapters properly, this was the first thing I thought of  
> I've used she/her pronouns for Pidge  
> Hope you enjoy it!!!

 “I just don’t understand! He has no injuries apart from a few small bruises but as Hunk pointed out those could be from training. There’s no trace of some kind of ‘stun gun’, as you called it Lance, nor any sedative. So falling into a coma just doesn’t make sense!”

The remaining team members stood, gathered around a healing pod.

That’s if you didn’t count the cube hurriedly stuffed in Lance’s back pocket as Keith was placed into the pod. And Keith didn’t count the cube. Because the cube wasn’t currently a contributing member of the team because no one _knew_ the cube was part of the team, or supposed to be.

No one knew Keith was the cube.

“There has to be something we’re missing” Pidge said for what felt like the millionth time “Coran, is it possible to do a scan in even closer detail?”

“Well yes, there is, but it takes a long time so it’s normally only used on small areas where we know there is a problem-”

“We don’t have to scan the whole of Keith though” Pidge pushed up her glasses “A good start would be just his central nervous system. Maybe it’ll show us something that’ll explain his coma but was too small for the other scans.”

“I agree with Pidge… but y’know the central nervous system is still quite big because of like, the brain, so will that still take a really long time?”

“Hmm, well Hunk I’m just calculating that now. As for your idea Pidge, it’s a good one that’s certainly worth a try”

Stuck in Lance’s pocket, Keith was struggling to stay calm. Now the healing pod hadn’t worked out what had happened to him, things seemed a bit more troubling.

Just a bit.

Expecting nothing to happen, Keith tried to shout at them again.

A loud startling beep rang out from Lance’s pocket.

Keith froze in shock. That hadn’t worked before. What had he done differently?

“Lance, what in quiznak was that”

“What? Hunk!? Why are you asking me?”

“I know that face, Lance. That is your ‘I look innocent but I actually did steal your cookies Hunk and I feel really guilty’ face”

Lance spluttered.

Keith took this opportunity to clumsily fly out of Lance’s pocket and hover shakily in the air.

Everyone stared down at him in shocked silence.

Keith tried, without losing concentration on his awful balance, to say a wobbly hello which ended up sounding like a soft whine.

“Lance,” Pidge said quietly, full of anticipation “Is that. What I think it is?”

“… no?”

Pidge lunged for Keith, who shouted in alarm and flew upwards, right into Lance’s face as he stepped forwards to stop Pidge.

Lance yelled in pain. Keith hid in his hood.

“Give me that pink cube Lance!” Pidge yelled.

“Wait, I thought you said you left that cube space grenade thing you picked up?!” Hunk caught on.

“You brought an unknown weapon into the castle and didn’t tell us?! Lance, a paladin should know better!” Allura scolded.

Oh boy, Keith was glad he wasn’t Lance right now.

“Okay so I was going to tell you eventually and yea I might’ve brought the cube onto the castle even though I don’t know what it does, but surely the castle would have detected if it was super dangerous?”

“That last part is true” Coran quietly pointed out.

From the jostling in the hood, Keith guessed Lance had thrown his arms in the air to emphasize Coran’s agreement.

“You can still let me check it though” Pidge said, annoyed.

Hunk, Allura and Coran noisily agreed.

Lance sighed

“Yea I guess,” Keith was suddenly pulled from his refuge “but don’t hurt it.”

“It doesn’t have feelings Lance.” Pidge said critically, even as she gently took a furiously beeping Keith from out of Lance’s hands, “It’s a machine.”

“Well team, the scan will be done in one Varga so meet back here then”

####

Pidge hurried down the castle halls to her room, clutching the cube in her hands and talking at breakneck speed.

Keith had seen her room once before, full of tools and bits of tech. He wasn’t looking forward to visiting again as a cube that Pidge wanted to experiment with.

“… so similar to Altean and even Olcari tech in elegance and concept, its going to be fascinating to see how you’re programmed…”

Distacted by her own rambling, Pidge gradually loosened her hold on Keith. She let go as they turned down another castle corridor, instead using her hands to gesture wildly in the air.

For a while Keith flew beside her and then he just… stopped.

Pidge continued walking.

It wasn’t until Keith had flown two corridors away that he heard Pidge shout in realisation.

Speeding back to the empty med-bay, Keith figured he had a good chance of not running into anyone there (since they had all just left). Maybe he could even figure out how to get back into his body.

Keith burst in.

Lance shot up from where he was sat on the floor.

Hearing Pidge not far behind, Keith darted back into Lance’s hood cursing his luck. Hopefully he could count on Lance to keep his mouth shut.

“Lance! You’re still here?!” Pidge panted from the doorway.

It seemed Keith had escaped by hairsbreadth.

“I … um yea. Did you leave something?” Lance stuttered out.

“No.” Pidge paused awkwardly “… have you seen… that cube… anywhere?”

“You’ve lost it already.” Lance deadpanned.

“No! It escaped!”

“Whatever Pidge, your lame excuse doesn’t fool me”

“Ugh shut it Lance just tell me as soon as you find it… if you do”

Keith waited to hear Pidge walk away but there was silence.

“Y’know…” Pidge trailed off awkwardly “… it’s not your fault”

Lance rocked back onto his heels, sucking in a sharp breath.

“We don’t know that”

Lance’s voice was soft and vulnerable in a way Keith had rarely heard.

Pidge sighed.

“Whatever happened it’ll be okay, we’ll figure this out”

The encouragement was slightly stiff in Pidge’s mouth as if she was only guessing what she was supposed to say. (Shiro had always been the best at these reassuring speeches)

Lance hummed.

“Thanks” he said.

It sounded more like he was comforting Pidge then the other way round.

Eventually Keith could hear her slowly walking away.

“Gracias hermanita” Lance whispered.

Keith rolled cautiously out of Lance’s hood, floating with less of a struggle in front of Lance’s face. He was getting the hang of being a cube. And he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing

Lance barely acknowledged the cube that was inches from his face, he was staring at nothing.

Not liking this strange expression, Keith beeped.

Lance shifted his gaze to Keith, though his eyes were still far away.

Keith emitted a string of shrill noises.

“Woah buddy! Hey! Wow you do not like to be ignored, huh?”

Keith would have sighed if he could but he settled for beeping grumpily as he drifted down to the floor. Flying took a lot of concentration, even if he was getting better at it.

Lance followed him, settling back into his crossed legged position from before the interruption.

“You tired? Me too. I’m starting to think I’ll always be tired” Lance laughed.

Confused, Keith only stared in answer (not that Lance could tell). His eyes were sad and a bruise was forming on his cheek from where Keith had accidently hit him earlier.

“Ah well that was a sad beep wasn’t it? You’re worried about me as well?”

Keith hadn’t meant to say anything. He’d almost mastered flying but this cubic language seemed very hit and miss.

But right now he _was_ worried about Lance.

“Huh well. Guess I’m not doing good if even a cube is feeling sorry for me” Lance laughed again and Keith decided he did not like this self-depreciating humour. He’d take the worst of Lance’s arrogant comments over this any day.

Restlessly, Keith rolled around. Which was new. It had to be said that life as a cube was full of surprises.

“Pidge isn’t that bad” Lance said, breaking off Keith’s train of thought “you could let her just check you over. You might even become friends. Pidge used to have a robot friend, Rover, they were super tight.”

“ _I know_ ” Keith tried to say.

“Ok so you don’t like the sound of that. But seriously, Pidge is great, really clever, we’d be lost without her. Hunk as well, a great guy, a greater friend and an even greater cook!” Smiling, Lance paused.

“ _Yea, I know that too. And I can’t believe you’re telling a potential enemy all this potentially useful information”_

(Perhaps he was a little grumpier then necessary but hey that might just be because he was a cube) _._

Laughing at Keith’s meaningless beeping, Lance lay down and tucked his hands beneath is head.

“This is just like that time with the yupper…” Lance sighed as Keith rolled up next to his head.

“… Ah well, Shiro is- was our most awesomest leader… still is really, even though Allura is a badass princess who bosses us around Shiro is still in charge... well, was in charge. He still holds that position in our hearts y’know.”

Keith felt an all too familiar pang at Lance’s words. (It was generally why he avoided talking about it at all costs.) Lance seemed to deal with grief a bit differently… Keith supposed he liked to talk about these things.

Lance swallowed noisily before he continued.

“Coran is like our crazy uncle.” He chuckled “He’s funny and knows a ton about all kinds of things! ... Don’t let him fool you though, he’s pretty good in a fight.”

“ _You sound like you’ve tested that out_ ” Keith muttered, wondering what Lance would say about him, if anything at all.

“Yea you would have been fooled without my warning, lil’ dude, you can admit it!... Anyway, Keith, who is currently in a healing pod and I’m sure its somehow your fault”

Lance sharply turned to face Keith, glaring, and to his shame Keith squeaked and rolled backwards in surprise. Yet this made Lance laugh uproarously as he turned back to face the ceiling so Keith didn’t mind as much (Not that he’d admit that)

“Now Keith… Keith is the coolest. Always doing crazy junk like flying into black holes and slashing things with his sword. He trains all the time as well so he’s an insanely good fighter. And he’s got great hair.”

Well that was the last thing Keith had expected. That and Lance’s soppy expression.

He was stunned. He didn’t know what to do.

Honest compliments. About Keith. Coming from Lance. Casually. Like he just handed them out all the time. And about his hair. _His mullet_.

“And then there’s not much to say about me really.”

Brought down sharply, Keith shouted in outrage.

“Ok, ok! Wow buddy, you sure do like me” Lance laughed as Keith spluttered beside him “I call myself the team sharpshooter and I kinda am. I did prove that... but I’m still like, the extra”

Yet again, Keith was confused.

“Um… Say, if this was a tv show, which should be a thing when we get back to earth because we would make an awesome series or even a movie! ... yea so if this was a tv show, I’d be the character whose mainly in the backround and gets like no character development and no one dislikes them but noone likes them either. They’re just kinda there occasionally and then nobody cares when they get killed off- shit… I better not get killed off! I’ll be so pissed if I …!”

Keith zoned out of Lance’s rant. He had not seen enough tv to completely understand Lance’s analogy but enough to understand pretty much what Lance was getting at. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“… huh so yea… everybody’s so cool and I’m just… just a boy from Cuba really.”

Keith wished, Keith desperately wished that he wasn’t a cube right now. If only so he could somehow find a way to say that Lance was an irreplacable member of the team. Vital, essential, fundamental. He was _the_ pilot of the blue lion, the right leg, the team confidence.

But unfortunately Keith was a cube.

And all he managed to do was hit Lance again. (Why was he always unable to contain the angry energy that bubbled up inside in him?)

Lance yelped in pain and then again in surprise as Coran swept into the room.

Keith was shoved back into Lance’s pocket.

“Oh Lance you’re already here! Well time isn’t almost up, I was just coming to check on the progress, the others shouldn’t be joining us for a while.”

“Never left, Coran, someones gotta watch over Keith.” Lance stood up and stretched “If anyone could get themselves into trouble while in a healing pod, it’d be Keith!”

Coran laughed but looked at Lance knowingly.

“Well… as long as you’re not feeling guilty for something that wasn’t your fault!”

“Of course not!” Lance shrugged “What could I feel guilty about? I left him for one minute and he gets himself in a coma and puts the Glalüy moon in panic because they think they’ve just insulted Voltron. So it’s clearly all his fault, absolutely nothing to do with me amiright?”

Coran only hummed in answer, making Lance huff.

The tapping of Coran’s fingers on the control panel was the only sound

“… I wasn’t there to help him,” Lance finally muttered “for the one minute that counted Coran. What if it was the cube I activated? What if it was an attacker, or attackers, that I could’ve helped fight off? What if-”

“Lance.”

Lance shut his mouth with a snap.

“You’re getting too caught up in these ‘what if’s and ‘what could’ve happened’s” Coran placed a comforting hand on Lance’s shoulder “ its never good to do that. What’s happened has happened and Keith will be fine, I’m sure of it. He’s a tough one, our Keith, a real fighter!”

“He really is” murmured Lance.

####

“So you are sure, aren’t you, Coran?” asked Allura.

“Well yes, it’s the best explanation we’ve got from looking at this scan- Ah Pidge! You’re here, what took you so long?”

Turning from Keith’s healing pod, the team looked at a wheezing Pidge.

“I…” Pidge placed her hands on her knees “I just did a few laps of the whole castle- ”

“Wow nice Pidge” interrupted Hunk appreciatively “…Though doing extra training at times like these is more a Keith thing-”

“I was looking for that cube Hunk” Pidge puffed, cutting him off.

“Oh sorry-! Wait… why were you looking for it? You can’t have lost it?!” Hunk looked around in panic “We still don’t know what it does!”

Pidge moved from the doorway into the circle the others had formed while Lance stepped closer to a somewhat frantic Hunk and placed a hand on his shoulder (subtly hiding his slightly cube-shaped pocket in the process).

“Chill buddy, it’ll be fine. If we can’t find the cube, we can just ask the Glalüy what it does… Actually why haven't we done that already!?”

“ _Yea why haven't you?_ ” thought Keith, careful not to make any unintentional noise, “ _I could be out of this mess already._ ”

“Well you were the last person there.” Pidge pointed out.

“Hey hey hey that’s not fair! I was too busy taking care of Keith to ask about the cube” Lance protested loudly.

That much was true, Keith knew that. Lance had been extremely serious when bringing his body back to the castle… which shouldn't have been such a big surprise. Keith didn’t really know what he’d expected (maybe more jokes to lighten the mood).

“Yes well anyway… asking the Glalüy about their weapons is risky at the best of times and we aren't in good favour with the them right now, since Lance looked the ambassador in the eyes when he left- ” Allura said.

“Accidently!” Lance muttered.

“- plus we don’t know for sure if they’ll tell us the truth, y’know there is a chance _they_ attacked Keith. Although they were allies of Altea it has been 10,000 years and they haven’t exactly been fighting the Galra during that time.” Hunk added “They could just blame the cube as a cover! So really, our best bet is testing the cube for ourselves.”

“Yes well, that’s all true. As for what you’ve missed Pidge, the detailed scan came up with quite a bit but the most interesting thing by far is this” Coran gestured to an image on the control panel screen “Right in the centre of that bruise on the back of his neck is a needle sized tear in his tissues that goes all the way into his spinal chord and caused a bit of a bruise there too.”

Even though he knew what Coran was going to say it still made Keith feel a bit sick to imagine what this cube must have done to extract his mind.

“So we think that Keith’s possibly been injected with something or just had some kind of nervous impulse triggered that’s put him in a coma” Hunk finished.

“ _Not quite_ ” Keith thought.

“So what’s the plan then?” Pidge asked.

“I’ll be looking for a substance that could go undetected in our healing pods, if there is one, and that could also put you earthlings in a coma.” Coran said “You could help, Pidge, since you know some Altean, while the rest of you see what the Glalüy are willing to tell us about the cube.”

“Though checking out that cube is higher priority for you Pidge,” Lance added, “when you find it because I definitely haven’t got it hidden away this time…” He lowered his voice into “It’s loose! Wreaking havoc in the castle _as we speak_ …”

“Ah stop it Lance, you’re freaking me out with that sinister stare!” Hunk said, laughing.

As always, Keith was impressed by Lance’s ability to make distracting jokes. It was a clever trick, a kind of clever that Keith barely understood. He wondered if Lance genuinely knew that, how clever he was. Thinking about what Lance had said earlier, Keith guessed that he didn’t.

“Well uh, it’s been a long day” Allura started awkwardly “time to get some rest ready for whats ahead of us” (The gap left by Shiro always reared it’s ugly head during the most ordinary moments. Things like Allura filling in his usual goodnight speech. Another reminder of the heavy loss that weighed down on all their shoulders.)

Nodding and smiling sadly, they left the med bay.

####

Lance walked into his room, pulling Keith out of his pocket as the door closed behind him, tossing him onto the bunk, allowing him only a second to catch himself and hover, grumbling, above the bed.

Lance ignored him and padded into his little ensuite bathroom, humming an upbeat tune and leaving Keith alone.

Keith stewed over the idea of Pidge messing, unkowingly, with his mind. It was an idea he detested. But he had yet to think of an alternative plan that might actually result in them working out that he was stuck in this stupid cube. Then they could get him back in his body as soon as possible and everything would be fine! Why did everything always have to be so complicated? What if Pidge hacked in wrong… what would happen to Keith then? It wasn’t that Keith doubted her skill, he was just… worried.

Staring at the bed below him, he became aware that he didn’t know how cube's slept. Or if he even could sleep.

It looked like the night was going to be a long one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added this real quick instead of dwelling over posting for an hour like a normally do so if there's any mistakes... that might be why  
> As soon as enough of the next bit edited you can read all about Keith getting in touch with his transcendent side lmao  
> Idk when I'll next update (hopefully soon!) I have to send off my application to uni's by friday and its. not. going. welll! I don't even know what universitys i want to apply to lol halp but enough about me   
> As always thank you for reading!!!! Kudos and comments give me sustenance to abandon my school work and finish this thing (give me ur lovin pls)


	3. Going 100mph (100 mistakes per hour)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again another rushed addition, sorry for any mistakes :)  
> Thanks for reading (I can't tell you how much i appreciate it)

Keith was woken fuzzily by insistent prodding which he tried to wave away. Nothing happened. The prodding continued.

He tried to tell whoever it was to leave him alone. He was busy chatting with Shiro.

When no words came, only a whining beep, all traces of his dream disappeared and he was jolted into sudden awareness

Grumbling about the mess in his room and the noise during the night, Lance turned his attention towards his morning facial routine.

(While Lance had been sleeping, Keith had _tried_ to sleep but given up in favour of trying to open the door. When that had failed he’d tried rummaging around Lance’s room for something to write with amongst the accumulated souvenirs. There may have been a few accidents. It seemed Keith wasn’t quite as good at flying as he thought. And he’d discovered cubes can’t write.)

At some point during the night Keith had taken a rest, watching Lance sleep. (Which had been a bit creepy but it’s not like he had anything else to do.) He vaguely remembered having a strange dream… but it was lost to him now.

He was utterly sick of being stuck in the cube. So sick he was actually willing to let Pidge fry his brains in the hope she’d be able to work it all out.

As Lance swept passed him, into the corraidor, Keith didn’t resist the urge to tell him (in beeps) that he was late for the morning update. (Lance was always late for the morning update, today wouldn’t be any different.)

Following Lance closely, Keith floated out of the room and down the corridor, refusing to admit he was annoyed by the lack of response he’d got.

“No no no. No, you can’t follow me. Go find Pidge or Hunk or someone.” Lance grumbled at him.

_‘What?!’_

But Lance had already disappeared around the corner.

Keith was on his own. Again. And unfortunately he had misjudged a few things.The first being that Lance had not woken up as late as Keith thought he did. The second was his flying capability. (Second nature now but still clumsy)

A few corridors away from losing Lance, Keith smacked face first into the wall.

While he was rolling around, disorientated, on the floor Pidge walked past.

Shrieking like she’d just seen the univers’s largest spider, she jumped on Keith giving him such a shock he passed out.

####

_“Oh hello again”_

_“... again? Where am I?”_

_“Oh hm well I don’t actually know”_

####

“See! Look, it’s fine! I told you it was just an automatic shut down” said a murky voice.

“Yea well I was just saying” replied another.

Gradually Keith became aware that he was in the castle control room, still trapped in a cube and now also trapped in a containment cylinder.

He couldn’t remember anything after Pidge catching him, embarrassingly. Being a cube was no excuse, he couldn’t believe he’d feinted. This meant he had missed the team breakfast but more importantly: Slav’s research update into Shiro’s dissappearance from his new lab in some secret location.

Though right now Keith had other things to worry about… like the intimidating spread of tech Pidge had around him.

“Okay. Now it’s turned on I’ll try all scanning again and see if it works this time.”

Coran and Hunk peered curiously over each of Pidge’s shoulders as she pointed a scanner at a nervous Keith. Allura stood just behind Coran while Lance looked on from far behind Hunk, arms crossed.

“No it still didn’t work!” Pidge yelled “There’s something about this cube that’s confusing it”

Hunk nodded understandingly.

“Guess we’ll just have to try a more practical approach” he said. Pidge just frowned, pulling out cables.

Keith did not like the look of this.

(He didn’t even know where Pidge was going to attach them. When he’d seen the cube in the Glalüy tent it had been simple and smooth all the way around, just like an Olcari one.)

Nevertheless, the cables were attached.

Keith felt a sensation like pins and needles in imaginary hands and feet.

“This code is fascinating” Pidge said “It does remind me of that spore the Olcari coded”

“Perhaps this is Olcari make then” Hunk suggested

“Impossible” Coran said “I’d recognise Olcari workmanship”

The tablet Pidge was tapping at beeped loudly just as Keith felt like he’d been whacked on the head.

“What was that?”

“I think... it’s blocking me”

Hunk leaned closer.

“I’m trying again”

Keith was prepared for the hit this time but it still took him by surprise.

“Wait!” Hunk called out “Don’t swipe that warning message away, I think it’s more important then just an ‘access denied’ alert”

“Well to find that out we’ll have to translate it. Coran do you recognise this?”

“Ah well there are elements to it that seem familiar. It looks like the common written language that was used between the moons back when their agreements with Altea ensured peace… but the grammar is all wrong… and some of the characters are different…”

“In the 10,000 years we were asleep, Coran, the written language could have easily changed- ”

“But princess, such a drastic one in a language with well-established grammar is extremely surprising. I mean they have all the technology for continuing stabalization-”

Allura hummed in agreement, tactifully cutting off Coran before he could start a 15 minute monologue about grammar.

“Well, could you give the translation a go?” Pidge asked hopefully “Even if it doesn’t really make sense.”

“Hmm well ok,” Coran cleared his throat “Protections of Ethics it has been- will be- are jeopodised…… ah so that first bit is ‘Ethical protections jeopordised.’ Then ‘during the effect of a perception being held’… I think?   ‘Set system can not be damaged or stability of perception will be … negotiated?’. I’m not sure.”**

Lance stepped closer to the group

 “... am I the only one thinking this thing is some kind of sentient being? Because normal robots don’t have warnings about ethics.”

“Yea I agree, but let me just try out one thing first…”

Keith was suddenly in excruciating pain, as if a needle was being driven through his skull while rough sandpaper scraped every inch of his body. The body he currently wasn’t inhabiting.

Struggling to focus, he locked onto Lance’s concerned face, barerly aware of any noise he was making.

As if from very very far away he heard Lance shout at Pidge to stop.

“Nearly there” Pidge replied feintly.

White sparks flickered in Keiths vision, numbly reminding him of the crackling TV he used to watch as a kid. Fizzling and popping, Pidge’s voice was lost in white noise.

Sinking sand pulling him down.

Firm tugging pulling him out.

With great effort he gripped onto the tugging feeling and suddenly he was falling.

####

_The limitless space was vast and echoing… quiet._

_Twisting, free falling, he stretched out his arms. He liked the fast feeling, watching the stars whiz past as if they were dripping through his fingers._

_“Woah! Slow down there!” a ringing voice called._

_“But I don’t want to” He shouted back._

_“Hey watch out for the ground- !”_

_Oomf_

_He landed on his shoulder first, flipping and rolling until he flung out his arms to stop himself._

_Winded, he stayed splayed on his back, processing the sudden impact._

_A concerned face swayed into veiw above him just as something bubbled up in his chest and Keith burst out laughing._

_“Kid? Hey, Kid!?”_

_The man shook his shoulder but it did nothing to ease his uncontrollable laughter._

_“Hey kid c’mon,” said the man, chuckling awkwardly now “C’mon you really had me worried”_

_Stifling his laughter, he accepted the friendly outstretched hand._

_“What’s so funny?”_

_“I- … don’t- … know!” He was still gasping for breath._

_“Damn kid, you always make a dramatic entrance”_

_Confused, Keith’s last chuckles died away into a frown._

_Noticing this, the man motioned soothingly with his hands._

_“No worries, happened last time. First, I don’t know where we are . Second, I’m Shiro and that’s all I know about me. Third, you’ve appeared here two times before knowing just as little as I do. Fourth, I don’t know where you came from or how you get back… you just kind of go?”_

_“Oh … cool” Keith nodded. There was something about the name Shiro… it was on the tip of his tongue_

_“Hey Shiro, I’m Keith”_

_“Hey that’s new” Shiro smiled “you couldn’t remember that before”_

####

“- c’mon, for quiznak’s sake. If this doesn’t work Lance is gonna kill me, stupid bio cube robot- Oh! You’re back!”

Groaning, Keith became gloomily aware of his current cubic predicament. In the first few seconds of waking up he had managed to blissfully forget.

Alas cruel fate. (Not that Keith believed in it.)

“Well hey little dude, I’m sorry about digging around in your output systems earlier but I needed to check you out and luckily I found out enough before you went out to say you’re pretty harmless! In fact it seems like you were actually designed to be harmless, I don’t know about that though because you were stored in a weapons room…”

Keith zoned out at Pidge rambled. He wondered if he’d be stuck as a cube forever.

“… great so we’ll head back to the control room then, I’ll just organise some of my kit… eh actually it can wait. I’ll do it later, c’mon.”

Shakily, Keith followed Pidge to the control room where they found Allura talking through diplomatic techniques, perfectly copying Coran’s demonstration of a correct Polerintiann greeting.

“The cube is fine!” announced Pidge as she entered.

The team let out a chorus of relieved sighs.

“Oh good I was dreading having to explain to the Glalüy how you broke their cube” Lance snorted.

“After you stole it in the first place” Pidge shot back, making Lance roll his eyes.

“Semantics” he said.

“Our priority for the moment is finding out what’s wrong with Keith…” Allura said, stating the obvious, “but I wonder if we could use this to our advantage. The Queb warriors, along with some of the other smaller moons, value dedication and teamwork over all else. Showing how dedicated we are to Keith could- ”

“No” Lance said suddenly. Surprising everyone with his interuption, including himself it seemed.

Alarm bells rang in Keith’s head. Was this Lance hating Keith so much he refused to be seen as dedicated to healing him?

“Ah, um what I mean is using the fact that Keith is in a coma to gain favour with some of the moons? Doesn’t really, uh, sit well with me and surely it would show that we kinda don’t care about him? If we’re willing to use the fact he’s half dead to get on the good side of some people?”

‘ _Oh_ ’ Keith thought.

Lance awkwardly scratched the back of his head while everyone considered what he’d said.

“I agree with Lance” Hunk said, moving to put his hand on Lance’s shoulder to emphasize his agreement. “Surely they’ve already heard of Voltron and how close the paladins are supposed to be so, we shouldn’t have to _show_ them how we’re a team of warriors if they already know that.”

Allura nodded.

“Well, Hunk and Coran can return to the Wynga moon and check out the properties of its numerous indigenous plants. Pidge and I can visit the Balzenti moon and search their extensive record house since it is always open. However the Glalüy will be asleep right now and since you are best suited to visit them, will you stay in orbit of Quadra with the castle until you can return to Glalüy, Lance?” Allura asked

“Anything for you Princess” Lance answered, winking.

Rolling her eyes, Allura lead the others out of the control room, leaving Lance alone with Keith.

As soon as the door slid shut, Lance’s grin slid off his face with a sigh.

####

“Ugh, Why doesn’t she just tell me I’m useless to my face?” Lance sighed, staring at the door.

Keith could see where Lance was coming from, Allura could easily have given Lance some job to do on another moon. But her decision could be because she was worried about Lance being a target for whoever they thought attacked Keith (especially since he couldn’t be part of a pair now) or she just wanted Lance to take a break for a while? Or maybe it was so Lance could keep on eye on Keith’s healing pod?

Whaterver it was, it was definitely not because Lance was useless.

Rolling his shoulders, Lance sauntered over to the control panel and swiped open the universe display, centering it on Earth.

It seemed he’d almost forgotten Keith was there.

“I love and hate how Coran taught me how to do this” he murmured

The blue glow of the map lit up Lance’s face and set the tips of his hair alight.

Keith had never been able to study his face properly. That is, in a quiet moment like this, without Lance somehow ruining the moment. And now he had the opportunity he found himself spellbound.

He could see the long shadows his eyelashes cast on his cheeks and every faint freckle sprinkled there. (He hadn’t even realised Lance had freckles before.) Lance’s hair formed lazy curls at his ears and just behind the left earlobe there was a smudge of his facemask left. At the nape of his neck there were actually some small coils, normally hidden by his armour or his hoodie.

Keith pulled his gaze back to Lance’s face.

His eyebrows were scrunched up into a frown and glistening tears threatened to spill down his cheeks.

From what Keith knew, Lance was a people person. He liked to be around other people and needed comfort from other people to feel better. Or at least, that was what Keith guessed.

The problem was Keith had no idea how to ‘comfort’ as a person, nevermind a cube.

Yet the classic ‘comforting hand on shoulder’ move had never failed him yet. (He didn’t exactly have hands right now but maybe a shoulder nudge would work.)

_Wham!_

Keith had misjudged the distence.

“Ow! Holy quiznaking son of a bright blue weblum! What was that for?!” Lance shouted, gripping onto his bruised shoulder with his other hand.

Keith sheepishly apologised as best he could, being unitelligable and a cube… and also stifling laughter at Lance’s string of nonsense (he was almost cute).

Lance burst out laughing. His head was tilted back and his grin was wide and Keith didn’t know what to do with himself.

“God you almost remind me of Keith!” he snorted.

The laughter died away as quickly as it had started.

Keith still really did not know what to do with himself.

“… I should check on him again”

_Again?_ Lance had already checked on him?

He asked Lance about this but a thoughtful hum was all he got in answer as they headed towards the healing pods.

 “Rise and shine, Keith, time to check on your stats!” Lance said with forced cheer as they entered.

_‘Only you would say rise and shine to someone in a ‘coma’’_ Keith said.

“Yea well done, cubio, that’s Keith” Lance replied, glancing up from the control pad to shoot a smile at (cube) Keith before looking at (healing pod) Keith.

After staring (at healing pod Keith) for what felt like 5 minutes, Lance tilted his head to the side.

“Huh. Spooky yet hot.”

Lance looked back down at the pad, face twisted.

“Weird weird weird. Stop being weird, Lance”

Keith was so confused. Lance had to be one of the most confusing people he’d met.

Keith was also bored. Which was unusual when Lance was around.

_Lance!? Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. Lance. La-’_

“for quIZNAKS SAKE! OK I GET IT! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!”

‘ _Nothing’_

Lance stared at him.

“… I have no idea what you just said… Wait wait wait. Beep once for ‘Lance in amazing’ or beep twice for ‘Lance is super awesome’”

Keith stuttered.

“3 beeps? So I am both amazing and super awesome? Aw lil robot, I love you too” he said silkily, blowing Keith a kiss.

Shocked, disgustingly charmed, and completely befuddled, Keith decided he’d had enough. He smoothly exited the room with what he considered to be a very aggressive squeak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **What the message actually says: (Ethical Protections jeopardised: while foreign conscious captivity is in effect, systems must not be tampered with or stability of caught conscious will be compromised.)
> 
> My life is a mess rn lol so editing and writing is slow. Please keep reading (and leaving kudos hehe) it rly rly makes life so much better.  
> In the next update we'll be back on Glalüy, wahey.


	4. Ice Ice Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this here creation of mine  
> big luv to you for reading xx  
> much thank

“Fly me to the moooon, let me playyy amongst the stars, la la la la something something Jupiter and Mars”

Keith watched Lance sing softly as he landed the Blue Lion gently in the jagged forest of ice, sculpted by the ferocious Glalüian winds, with impressive stability.

He’d given up trying to communicate with Lance a while ago, content to follow his plan and hope that the Glalüy would clear everything up soon enough.

Not too far away was the vast huddle of the Glalüian capital city (or ‘tentropolis’ as Lance called it), shielded in the depths of a crater. Coran had said that the Glalüy had vast network of underground tunnels for shelter from stronger storms and storage, it was where they kept their spacecraft. But the tunnels were still Galüan sized so they had no choice but to brave the surface winds to walk to the capital (Blue could only land so close).

Keith couldn’t wait to arrive, it wasn’t that he was tired of listening to Lance absently ramble about making ice sculptures, being able to talk to people in just beeps was only bearable for so long.

On exiting Blue, the cold rush of wind had almost swept Keith away

Lance only just managed to grab him before he was blown away, tucking him under his chin before beginning to jog towards ‘tentropolis’.

“I think the North Gate is just here” he puffed, breath forming white clouds in front of him that were immediately snatched away by the wind.

Sure enough the looming archway peered over them as they drew closer to the city wall built around the edge of the crater (Keith still didn’t believe Coran’s claim that it was just an extra windbreak, it looked suspiciously complex)

The white fur of the guards blended in with the snow, only the 3 sets of wide black eyes made their weasel-like bodies distinguishable. They stared as Lance approached, grouped toether like Meerkats.

Just as he had done on their fateful first visit, Lance dipped into a low bow and waited for the guards to return the bow before coming closer, eyes lowered. And if any of them noticed the cube tucked inder his chin they didn’t show it, returning the formalities and accepting the gifts of entry Allura had provided without blinking an eye.

It had to be said that being trapped inside this cube did have its advantages, Keith had barely managed to scrape through these formalities last time he was here, while Lance had breezed through them with ease. He could even flawlessly repeat the Glalüian welcoming phrase Coran had taught them. Keith hadn’t even tried to stutter through that.

(Maybe it had been a good thing Keith had been knocked out before he’d got a chance to meet the chief. He probably would have royally fucked it up.)

Escorted by the guards, they now headed straight to the (modified) Chieftain’s tent. (Unsurprisingly the guards were eager to prevent any fuss over height issues this time.)

Lance took off his helmet when they entered the tent, subtlety pausing so Keith could fly inside. From this hiding place, he could see very little of the tent except from the richly embroidered rug-thing on the floor.

The disembodied voice of the cheiftan spoke. They sounded a lot younger then Keith expected.

“Greetings again blue paladin! I am glad the issue with our previous ambassador has been resolved and I assume you are here to investigate your hm… c _lose_ companion’s … how do you say? Accident?”

“Uh yes” Lance replied.

“I’m very sorry, you must suffer with much weight mhm to go without soul-sight and with such a deep connection as well…”

“Um we’re not actually-?”

“Yes yes, Blue paladeen I must say I am not so familiar with the common speech so I hope you understand me good…hm hem I much prefer a fight to this talk! Don’t you? Yes hmm I don’t suppose you would wish to join in combat?”

A pause.

“Ikjhmn why do you shake your head?”

“The guest’s talk has to be held first before a fair fight can be held, you know this, otherwise minds are full of snow clouds. If you do not wish to hold the talk you defer to the council. You remember your briefing when you won chief position 3 long turns ago?” an elder croaky, presumbly Ikjhmn’s, voice said.

(Not-quite-a-rule Rule three of Glalüy: The chief is elected by way of combat, the best warrior winning the title, however power is still shared between the chief and the council of elders, sometimes making negotiations tricky)

Silence filled the tent and Keith could only assume the Glalüy were talking in that formal body language dialect sign thing Coran had practically buzzed about.

When he was back in his body, Keith hoped he could duel with a Glalüian sometime. From what they had been shown on the castle’s archives it would be pretty cool to test if he could match their fighting styles and-

The side of Lance’s helmet bashed into him. Lance was fidgeting, shifting from foot to foot.

“Excuse me-! Did you just? Present your outer left toe pad?!”

The room froze in silence.

“Ah um No!”, Lance stuttered, “I’m sorry that was um completely unintentional-”

“Oh um… I’m flattered but you don’t need to… lift your arm to your neck like that I- uh and surely your-?! Ah… _close_ companion would not approve of- of this?!”

Keith could practically feel how flustered Lance was and he should probably be worried about what Lance had just done if he wasn’t feeling so dizzy…

“I- uh y-yeas um I suppose so-”

Stars sparked in Keith’s vision. His stomach jumped into his mouth as _he_ _fell into the-_

“Grakt Glükliktrd!”, the chief shouted, a blurry figure sat on a hammock, “That just fell out of your helmet?!”

“Oh um yea- yes that…” came Lance’s distant voice

“… Ikjhmn, don’t you recognise this? Yes! That’s one of those things on the top shelf in our armoury! You made me personally oversee the inventory last long turn. How did you get that?!”

Slowly Keith’s vision cleared as Lance stammered out something else.

This cubic prison didn’t seem to be working properly.

Now sat on the tent floor, Keith could see everything from the brightly woven cloth walls to the small angry Glalüian fur ball bounding towards him.

The chief picked him up.

“… Does hm anyone even know what these do? Ikjhmn?” they said, all 6 eyes staring at Keith intently.

“Uh hmm no… that’s why they were kept on the top shelf. If you really want to know maybe the scholar?” Ikjhmn replied, a smaller ball with thining fur who sat curled in a hammock next to the chief’s.

Bored with Keith, the chief shifted their attention onto an agitated Lance.

“Hm brilliant! Now we can have a dual young paladin-!”

“No, he’s just lost his-” Ikjhmn croaked

“Aha but an eye is coming! Did you think of that, hm Ikjhmn?!”

The chief turned to Lance trying to maintain a more serious and formal expression.

“As much as I find your excuses just and even though you are a part of honourable voltron, blue paladin, we will have a dual! Now... now we will both train until the eye is here so that we can have the best time-” The chief caught sight of Ikjhmn's glare “Ack I mean you must go through a formal hm… a formal fight test hm yes that is how it is said. Hm but… where can you be held until the fight hm.”

“Well definitely not the armoury tent again” Ikjhmn snorted.

Lance winced.

(A part of Keith was kind of glad Lance was learning the hard way how bad of an idea picking up this damn cube was.)

“Yes yes of course… ah hm surely... Surely the Scholar’s glacier will be sufficient, and we can send the cube to be examined at the same time… hm yes! What a good idea! Guards!”

Keith was thrust into the hands of one the guards.

Hopefully this ‘scholar’ would have all the answers.

####

The Scholar’s Glacier was a long hike from the capital. Even through the direct tunnel route it would’ve taken ages to walk there. Fortunately Keith’s guard had sped down the carved passages on a hovering moped (not too dissimilar from the ones in the castle of lions used to take the paladins to the Lions).

Keith was upset he couldn’t enjoy actually trekking through the snow with his own damn legs, it would have been peaceful, and  Lance was probably hating it.

The guard hadn’t spoken since they’d left. Keith almost missed Lance’s chatter.

Coming to a stop at a dead end, the guard stood on the bike to push at the low ceiling, a portion of which soon lifted; grating against stone as the guard pushed it aside. They emerged into an empty, dimly lit, room whose only impressive features were the carved patterns along the light stone walls.

Without pausing, the guard delved into a warren of tunnels, scrambling round corners with such little hesitation Keith had completely lost track, until they emerged into a cavernous space.

Directly opposite them, yet a huge distence away, there stood a wall of ice.

The glacier.

Blueish light filtered through the frozen mass and lit the room along with the chandelier-like icicles dripping from the lofty ceiling. Dotted around the stone walls of the empty oval room there were many tunnel entrances but to the right was a gaping rectangular gap.

As Keith grappled with the dangers of practically living within a moving glacier, the guard had finished taking in the veiw. They scampered across the floor, claws creating an echoing clatter, carefully stepping on only blank tiles (never the patterned ones).

Keith wondered if that meant the room was trapped. Falling icicles, now that would be an interesting form of defense.

Now in the middle of the room, the gurad placed Keith gently on the floor and disappeared down one of the small tunnels to left of where they had entered.

From this position Keith could see through the giant gap, it was the entrance to a long straight corraidor that must have been built when the Glalüy had a bigger taste for grandeur. Not only because of the unnecessary size, the smooth walls were crisscrossed with intricate patterns that must have taken ages to carve. They caused the walls to shimmer and glint with the reflections from circles of ice set in regular lines across the ceiling, sky-lights.

Keith couldn’t see the end.

Most of the other tunnels were dark or changed direction almost immediately, preventing Keith from seeing what they led to. (Not much if the journey to this room was anything to go by).

Finally one of the darker tunnels lit up with an approaching light and out came Keith’s guard followed by, Keith could only assume to be, the Scholar.

They were slightly hunched and one set of their eyes remained closed. Instead of the tightly wrapped Glalüian cloth-armour, they wore loose drapes that trailed along the floor behind them and occasionly got caught under the Scholar’s crooked walking stick.

Keith’s guard swiped him from the air and handed him over eagerly.

Brought up to the scholar’s face for examination, he could see the old Glalüy in even closer detail. The thinning silvery white-fur covered greyish skin. Under their droopy eyes there was no fur at all.

They snuffled inquisitively wiggling their star shaped nose. It looked like the old Scholar relied more on smell then sight, well that was what Keith thought until they opened the other eyes. Bright blue irises pierced him for only a second before they closed again but Keith would never forget them.

Humming, the scholar left Keith to float in shock while they bent down to tap certain floor panels with their walking stick.

The Glalüy’s symplistic tent styled homes were decieving, it was easy to forget how impressive their the technical ability was.

The panels the scholar tapped selected different shelves of enourmous size. They rose soundlessly from where they must have been stored beneath the floor and shuddered into position. They weren’t filled with books or scrolls, but hexagonal rods covered in raised bumps, and not single one shifted during the room’s transformation.

And just as the change was complete a loud crash echoed down the long corraidor.

Muttering the Scholar gestured for the guard to stay behind them as they began to shuffle agonisingly slowly towards the noise, picking specific sequence of tiles to step on (confirming Keith’s suspicion that the icicles were booby-traps).

At multiple intervals another crash, each time louder then before, yet still the corraidor seemed not to end. Keith couldn’t work out what was making the noise.

The Scholar stopped. Tapping on the floor with their stick, they then pushed Keith’s guard towards an indent in the wall that housed a large wheel. (Keith didn’t understand how he hadn’t noticed it before then).

As the guard began to turn it with a few grunts, a loud grumbling blocked out the sound of the squeeking wheel and vibrated the rock around them.

The corraidor had been an optical illusion. The previously invisible door ground open slowly straight infront of them, revealing the bright white landscape. And a group of very annoyed guards shltering under the chiselled overhang of the cliff that shaded the entance to the Scholar’s glacier.

Surrounding them were shards of rock, the lead guard paused in the act of raising another stone to smash against the doors (A reminder that size is no guarantee of power… Keith really wanted to test himself against one of these guys).

“You need a better doorbell system” Lance joked from somewhere behind them, the first sound Keith had heard uttered in hours. (It made him feel a lot better)

Before anyone could answer towering clouds in the distence released a deafening clap  of thunder that reverberated around them, rattling the very shards of rock that lay scattered on the ground.

The Glalüy’s fur visibly stood on end.

Without further question, the leading guard began to hurry the group through the thick doors as they all chuntered worriedly.

When everyone had entered, Keith’s guard began to turn the wheel again (wheezing a little now) and the doors began to close.

As the Scholar shuffled back to where they’d come from, the leading guard drew up beside them, rapidly chattering what could be either complaints or orders.

Keith took the opportunity to get a good look at Lance for the first time since leaving Blue in the morning.

His nose and cheeks were bright pink under his helmet and, although he looked tired, his eyes were bright and happy. The guards ‘securing’ him clung to his hands and legs and were nudging him insistently. One was even dangling around Lance’s neck like an ermine scarf. But with more eyes. And paws. They didn’t seem to bother Lance, in fact they seemed to be talking but Keith didn’t understand.

The return journey to the large cavern seemed a lot shorter to Keith, now that Lance was here. And the blueish ice-light seemed a lot prettier, now that Keith could see how it threw turquiose light onto Lance’s face. (He finally managed to take off his helmet while the Glalüy clung to his arms).

“Blue paladin” rasped the scholar, breaking the silence,“I hear you are here for ‘holding’ or, as Wergt has told me,” they nodded at Keith’s guard “the chief wants you to be ‘training’ so the eye-fight is ‘fair and fun’… but I could use your help with these ebykóp.” They finished commandingly, waving their stick at the towering shelves.

Lance tore his eyes away from the wall of ice.

“Yea sure, how can I help with the… ebeekop?”

“Ah good we will need your height to reach the top ones. I have raised these shelves that catalog the contents of the armoury each year” the scholar explained “Hmmm...”

Directing strange arm movements at the rest of the guards, the Scholar shuffled towards the nearest shelf, followed closely by Keith and Lance.

While the guards scurried around behind them, Lance lifted the scholar onto his shoulders (as directed by the Scholar, not just randomly) so that they could scoop up as many hexagonal rods as possible.

“Yes, good good.” Started the scholar when Lance placed them back down on the ground, arms full of rods “Now we will be checking the inventories on these ebykóp to see what this cube is written as.”

Bustling forward towards what looked like a huge type-writer that guards were setting up, the scholar juggled the ebykóp in their arms. Lance’s hands twitched, as if ready to catch any that fell. Keith just flew as fast as he could in order to keep up.

“Hey um?” Lance began, continuing only when the scholar nodded “Y’know after I help you out with all this… I would like to ask if is it possible for you to help me out with something?”

Lance waited for the scholar to nod again

“My friend is ill and I think you might be able to help me find out why.”

Pausing, the scholar peered up at Lance.

“Is this your paired red paladin Bgthjumu told me about?”

“My-? Uh yea, I’m uh” Lance stammered, cheeks going slightly pinker, “Yea I’m very worried about him. Is Bgthjumu the Captain of the Guards? I was wondering what their name was uh so… is that a yes?”

The scholar nodded slowly.

“Understandable for you to be so worried, you must be as close as partnered Queb warriors,” Lance’s jaw fell open but quickly snapped shut again, “yes I will see what we can find before you have to go again”

Shuffling forwards the scholar began giving instructions to Lance and the guards, handing out the ebykóp.

Keith tried to focus on the words but they sounded so muffled it was hard to concentrate on the sounds. He was tired and heavy everyone was bustling around him, spinning, it was hard to move and even the cavernous space felt like it was spinning, spinning, _spinning, falling, falling._

_The back of his eyelids were dark but fuzzy, as if they were filled with stars._

_A familiar voice. A lost voice._

_“Hey Keith? Ceith! Ceibe! Ceibe!_ Ceube?! Cube!!”

Lance.

Like pulling out earplugs, everything popped into sudden clarity.

In front of a backdrop of blue-ish cave walls and bustling guards was Lance’s concerned face.

Bright eyes and glowing skin.

(Perhaps Keith could understand why Lance religiously performed his pamper routine.)

Distracted, Keith almost smacked into the ground when Lance let go of him take some of the bumpy sticks of an insistant guard.

Arms now full again, he promptly made his way much farther down the shelves then they had just been with the scholar moments before.

“You must of switched off for quite a while there buddy,” Lance whispered, leaning towards the floating Keith “I hadn’t noticed you on the floor until now, I’ve been so busy ferrying all these ebykóp”

Lance gestured to the load he was currently carrying with a weird shrug that almost made the top ones fall (and did make Keith laugh).

“Shushhh! Shut it you silly cube,” Lance hissed, though his words held no anger “C’mon lets get this done, scholar reckons the next few inventories will definitely list what you actually are without being vague, then we can finally locate you on the descriptive history of weaponry shelf”

Quietening down, Keith happily floated by Lance as he restocked the shelves with his armfull of ebykóp.

He wouldn’t think about what was going wrong with the cube.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao did you know this whole mess of a fic was based on me literally thinking of ways in which Keith could overhear Lance singing "fly me to the moon" while actually flying to a moon. haaaaaaaaaaaaa im dying.  
> I don't plan to deprive you of updates coz things have become a bit more chill lately. In fact I already have another lined up (just remember the faster i update the faster we approach the bits i haven't actually written yet lolllllllll im crisis personified)  
> pls leave kudos and comments i need them for my soul to devour  
> Join me next time when sHIT GOES DOWN kinda


	5. Oh My God It's Happening Everybody Stay Calm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry this is so late when i literally just said i was gonna update regularly (I've been ill and buried under school work rip)  
> pls take this n give me ur love :')

_Boom_

_Shklack Shklack_

No one flinched when the rug-lined cave shook.

_Boom_

_Shklack Shklack_

A great snow storm. The Scholar said it had been brewing for a long time, like some great ominous warning for disaster. At least from where they were huddled, deep in the Scholar’s warren, the noise was somewhat quieter. Keith would worry about getting trapped by a cave-in but he couldn’t bring himself to.

Currently meditating humming in a cushioned corner (‘to revitalise the memory’ they had said), the Scholar was simultaneuosly sewing together long swathes of strange cloth at surprising speed. They were making Lance his own ‘wrapped’ Glalüian armour.

Sat in a circle of muddled conversation was Lance with Keith on his lap, worrying about Blue and trying to learn to read the brail-like writing on the ebykóp. Surprisingly, Keith found it quite soothing, to sit and watch. Normally he’d be itching to get up and do something.

But this was nice.

It wouldn’t be long until their break was over. They’d be back searching the shelves with the Scholar listening to the storm raging.

Finding any records on the cube was proving harder then expected. (Not that Keith was doing any of the searching.) It was tiring enough for him just hearing the scholar droning on about history, though Lance was attentitive enough.

Keith intended to enjoy the break while he could.

####

Across the universe time is always measured differently. Whether it was with specific intervals, or the vaguest celestial events.

But until now Keith had never had to face such an irregular technique.

On Glalüy (and most of the other moons orbiting Quadra) the length each day or week could be vastly different, mostly because of the nature of each moon’s orbit. Unsurprisingly this also sparked a lot of disputes when organising inter-moon meetings in the past. When Coran had first explained this to them all (a million years ago when Keith was not a cube) the battles fought over the measurment of time had not seemed very understandable.

But now, Keith could understand.

In particular, Glalüian time was based more on the weather then on the moon’s actual orbit or rotation. (What detectable differences the Glalüy found in their weather went over Keith’s head.)

His estimate was that they’d been stuck in the scholar’s glacier for around a week, Earth kind of time, based on how many parcels of food the group had got through. But in Glalüian time, this was the very same day they had arrived at the glacier. It hadn’t finished, this was one day.

Yet only the ‘day’ before (when Keith was cubed) the ‘day’ had lasted about 6 hours in Earth time.

Ridiculous.

What was worse was that he couldn’t do _anything._ He was definitely a cube but often he felt exactly like he was in his body, especially when he’d just woken up from a blackout (Keith wasn’t worried about those, they were probably normal).

Flying loop the loops was only fun for so long. (5 minutes.)

Cryptically the Scholar would only ever say “ _The eye’s near_ ” if Lance ever breached the subject of departure.

On a more positive note, a breakthrough the Scholar had made last night (on a 700 year old ebykóp) listed the actual name and make of this mechanic cube mind-trap. Now the answer to all Keith’s problems was one alphabetical search away.

He had it planned out for when he got back to normal. First, he was going to eat, then sleep, finally fly Red again or train, and somewhere along the way throw Lance a smile or something. (Only to make up for all the times he couldn’t this week. Obviously.) If he concentrated, he could almost pretend he was back on the castleship and not hovering over Lance’s shoulder in an alien cave.

After being pulled out of the guard’s makeshift obstacle course (made out of the ebykóp shelves) by the Scholar, Lance was now attempting to meditate.

It had only been after the 5 minute mark that Lance had actually managed to settle down into this trance thing, but now (from what Keith could see) he’d really got into it. And since Lance’s restless nature was what had got them into this mess in the first place, Keith considered some meditation to be a pretty good plan. (Which he himself could probably benefit from too. He’d promised himself he’d ask Lance to teach him because it couldn’t be that hard.)

Wrapped in his finished modified Glalüian armour (that really didn’t hide his broad chest unlike most of his other clothes), Lance cut an impressive figure next to the scholar. When he’d first tried it on he’d very enthusiastically claimed how less ‘clunky’ it was compared to his paladin armour (now left in a neat pile in the Scholar’s rooms) and Keith had to admit he did look prettyyyy fine. (Deep inside he'd been screaming about how he'd tap that ass _anyday_ ho boiiiiii you better believe if he'd had a face it would have been as red as a tomato)

Lance suddenly gasped, rocking backwards.

Startled from admiring Lance’s new innovative armour (yet again), Keith tumbled onto the floor, taking a second to focus on what Lance was saying

“- can’t believe it was like that! I feel like… I – I feel like something incredible is going happen! I don’t know why? Why? I feel…” he slurred, bubbling with energy.

When Lance had finished, the Scholar pealed their eyes open as their two eerily blue ones closed and nodded proudly.

“Yes you connect the ice surprisingly strongly, I am shocked. I would not expect for you to pick up sense on your early attempts… it must be your paladin bond.” They nodded, “yes, your paladin bond…”

Creaking, the scholar lent on their stick and heaved themselves onto their feet. Lance stood too.

“Ah now I think I finally have an answer for the chief about the little cube,” said the scholar as they headed to last stack of ebykóp, “we may have time to search for your answers before the eye arrives. It was only when you were pressing me about our bond with the Alteans that my memory was sparked and now we have the right texts before us.” They patted the ebykóp fondly “I’m sure you would say it’s ‘funny’ that the cube is built on Altean research conducted here yet your Altean’s could not discover it’s function…” the scholar trailed off, pausing for a second just as Keith was losing concentration.

 “Yes, well, it certainly is brilliant technology!” Lance exclaimed, eager to change the subject.

“Yes, I mentioned I thought it was a relic from the time of Sybjo’s appeal for peaceful warfare, yes?” Lance nodded “Yes, well I think this was one of the commisioned ‘weapons’ made by a Balzenti expert I think… yes so this specific cube was used to hmmm actually what did you say happened to your- ”

“Paladeen!!!! Paladeen!!!!”

Lance’s head snapped towards the yelling, body tensed and ready to run. (Keith was screaming internally. The Scholar was so close to working it out).

The sound of the storm had vanished, replaced by a growl rippling through the cavern.

The Scholar turned to Lance, latching onto his arm.

“Go! It is time, the eye is here. Hm hm! Don’t worry, I will tell Wergt what I know about the cube and give him your armour to take to the capital through the tunnel, he approaches now. I have things I must do… It has been an honour to meet and learn with you, Lance honourable paladin of the Blue Lion. I believe we meet again soon.”

Too shocked and choked up to speak, Lance clumsily perfomed a complex bow before turning to run towards the yells of the guards. Not waiting for anyone to stop him, Keith followed at top speed.

Finally, something interesting was happening.

####

Blue was pacing at the entrance of the cliff doors, impatiently bashing the rocks.

They were stood in the eye of the snow storm, safe in the calm centre. Keith could see the strongest icy winds only tens of miles away, still howling around them.

As Lance stepped outside, Blue shot a blast of ice into the sky.

“And I’m happy to see you too girl!” Lance yelled, laughing.

Crouching, Blue opened her mouth and Lance yelled again, this time to the guards.

“C’mon! We’re following the eye to Tentropolis!”

####

Keith could hear Lance whispering. Well he couldn’t actually hear Lance currently, but he knew what he was saying. He’d been repeating the same words over and over ever since they’d disembarked from Blue, as if he couldn’t physically stop.

“This isn’t it. Something else is gonna happen. There’s something else coming. This isn’t it-”

Enclosed in clear jar in the Chief’s arena pavilion seats, Keith could only watch while Lance crouched in the icy arena itself, circling the Glalüian chief.

The ‘formal’ Glalüian trail. More like a bored chief’s desperate attempt at a bit of freedom then a fight for justice. Regardless of outcome Lance’s charge would be dropped.

Lance licked his lips, eyeing the chief’s twin pistol-like guns.

The sleek and white, yet with some kind of spinning mechanism Keith had never seen before. It was almost like a ratchet.

Activating his bayard, Lance jumped into an offensive strike. The chief was a blur as they rolled out the way, kicking into an attack of their own.

And so the Fight began.

The pistols made little noise but they fired bright white light that flared around the arena like lightening and reminded Keith of a weblum’s beam.

Ducking and weaving, Lance tactic was to keep his distence from the chief.

Keith would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried. Close combat had never been Lance’s strong suit and he didn’t trust that Glalüian armour no matter how good it looked.

The gun flares filled the air, he couldn’t tell if they hit their target or not (he also couldn’t tell if it was actually his vision flickering), he couldn’t see if Lance was okay…

Firing intensly with their strange guns, the chief managed to advance and drive Lance towards the edge of the arena.

They rolled for Lance’s legs, aiming to topple him with a kick but suddenly Lance wasn’t there.

He was jumping up, twisting in the air, flipping over their head, landing-

Lance stood panting, bayard pressed against the chief’s back.

Silence.

“That.” The Cheif said, voice ringing in the hushed arena, “Was. Brilliant!”

The crowd erupted into cheers.

Keith could hear a loud buzzing in his head, higher pitched then ever before.

The Chief was announcing another round but the castle ship was decending through the raging clouds, roaring above the city. Purple lasers bombarded the particle barrier and Galra fighter ships swarmed around it like flies.

The cheers turned into cries of alarm.

All attention was back on Lance ( _something had come_ ) but Keith couldn’t tell why ( _This was it_ ) because his vision was fading ( _It was happening_ ) and he couldn’t hear anything, he was very sleepy and _eveything was just going  b l a c k_

####

_“Keith something’s wrong, you’re fad-”_

_“I need to go back I  I need to go-”_

#

Everything was fuzzy.

A distant voice was speaking with insistence.

Familiar voices.

The words and sentences seemed so obvious yet confusing at the same time. They were talking about… storm shielding temporarily… focus… New Galra attack…

It was all a bit blurry and so easy _to just drift  o f f_

#

_“…c’mon Keith!?”_

_“Huh what…?”_

_“What’s happened? What’s coming? Why do you keep saying that?”_

#

He could feel someone was worried, someone big and black. They demanded trust, well this was trust wasn’t it? Big Black might be worried but he really couldn’t see why… everything seemed fine… Floaty.

#

_“Wake up! You’re fading! I don’t know what to do!”_

_“I’m awake! I’m awake! You can stop shaking me Shiro”_

_“I’m not shaking you?”_

_“Oh right…”_

_He felt weak, wanting to stop the fading feeling but unable to. There was something missing he-_

_“Look Keith, something isnt right. I can feel… I um someone needs our help? Some people… a lot of people! … I don’t know but I get the feeling we’ve been here long enough. Well, I’ve been here, you’ve been dropping in- ”_

#

Another voice.

_Sleep was so tempting. But he had to stay._

“…designed to prevent unnecessary death on stealth missions...”

_It would be so easy to just slip back into sleep. He had to stay for something._

“…so you can see why it was only designed for short-term use not prolonged like this...”

_It was so hard to concentrate, he could hear words but not string together their meaning._

“So Keith has been in danger and under my nose all this time?!”

Oh that was a new voice, a nice voice, but a too stressed out voice. Which was saddening. But the voice was talking about him! Which was nice.

He didn’t know why.

“Get the scholar” said the same voice.

Keith thought that was a great idea. But he was just, going, to take, a  n a p ...

#

_“Lance.”_

_“- Lance? Who’s Lance?”_

_“…someone important”_

_“Oh ok-”_

_“Shiro, there was a castle… a castle and lightening. And Lance.”_

_“… a castle… the castle of... lions?”_

_Just as the homing feeling grew stronger it slipped._

_“Something…_ _something else was gonna happen, Shiro… Something else was gonna happen! Shiro?! That wasn’t it! They had arrived! Shiro! They were there!”_

_“Oh ok, Keith you need to calm down, Keith calm down! You’re fading faster, Keith I need you to calm down. Deep breaths with me c’mon, Inhale”_

_Keith could feel it again, it felt like he was finally be dragged in the right direction by some large force. He’d almost forgotten it._

_“and Exhale…_

_...Good that’s better. This is great. We’re remembering things, we just have to stay calm while we do-”_

_“We need you to come back to us… I need you…”_

_“Keith?! What do you mean by that?! What-”_

_“You’ve been gone a long time, Shiro…”_

_“Keith wait!!!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAMF LANCE FTW check out my talented son being all smexy, making Keith a bit hot around the collar (also using my artistic licence with quintessence here: its like a life-force you can use as a 6th sense and Lance talked to the moon so there)  
> hints of sheith at the end there?? If you wanna read into it like that s'all cool but personally its a nah  
> I promise I won't leave you on this cliffhanger for long :') (but if i'm using Glalüian time... i mean i can't promise anything ;P)  
> thank you for reading i love all you guys


	6. 420 BLAZE IT

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feat. embarrassed Lance, drooling Keith, the most important war conferences in the Quadra system in the past 300 years, and tlc from Pidge + Hunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't do drugs kids. KEith needs them for mEDICINE in this chapter. Be responsible for your brains and dont do alien drugs for fun.

Waking up can be very strange because as the waking up happens it all seems very slow but when you’re actually suddenly awake, you have no idea how it happened, you just have the vague memory that it was a rather slow process.

At least, that was the vibe Keith was feeling right now.

It was a bit fuzzy.

As far as he could tell he was being held, there was something on the back of his neck, and something attached to his hand.

It felt a bit weird and numb.

When he opened his eyes, Lance’s face swam into focus.

It took a second to actually remember Lance’s name, along with words in general, but Keith knew that face anywhere.

It was a good face.

His eyebrows were pinched into a frown but his eyes were shining.

 “Oh hey,” he said, tongue moving sluggishly, “you’re here! How are you?”

Lance seemed very puzzled by this question. Keith knew this as he looked up at someone Keith couldn’t see. Which was ok, he took this time to stare at Lance’s face a bit more.

“Freckles” he tried to say to Lance “whata brrilliant invention”

“Is he really ok? Is he supposed to be like this? He seems drunk!?” Lance was asking.

Keith tried to look at the person Lance was talking to but it was hard to focus on them. Giving up, he tried to focus on the other people in the room, outside the blue circle. Again he had no success.

Lance was just the easiest to look at.

“Yes, he’s fine. The cube will have administered a standard pain killer-”

Keith gasped, he’d forgotten about that. He wasn’t a cube anymore.

“It’s like morphine, in fact I think it-” This new voice made Keith think of glasses. Or something like that, it was hard to pinpoint and he was too caught up in his senses to listen to what they were saying.

He could actually feel the air around him and the clothes on his skin, the temperature, the smells. He could move his own body, his own arms!

“Look! I can move… Wowww”

He placed a hand on Lance’s cheek, stroking all the freckles with his thumb, “Your skin is  soft... so soft... what a precious face”

Lance seemed to be frozen, turning to look down at Keith so slowly.

“Wow look I’m breathing. This is actual air. Oh my, this is great.”

Keith took a huge breath of air.

It was quite overwhelming.

He tried to adjust his position in Lance’s arms so he was sat more upright but his body didn’t seem to work properly. He just kind of flopped a bit.

Lance seemed to get the idea though, he pulled Keith up (coincidently into his chest) into the perfect angle for Keith to rest his head on Lance’s shoulder. He even managed to wrap his arm around Lance’s waist so it wasn’t squished anymore.

Yawning, Keith decided now was a perfect time for a nap.

####

Lance was speaking to people. People had been speaking a lot, actually, Keith had been generally aware of it for a while. (Another one of those weird waking up slowly moments.)

What really got Keith’s attention, though, was that he was generally uncomfortable. And his cheek was wet. It had got to the point where Keith decided he must do something about it (then he could go back to sleep).

He was going to do something right now.

Right… now…

Keith sat up.

The conversation stopped.

For some reason, he had a feeling everyone was staring at him.

Wiping his mouth, Keith met Lance’s eyes.

“Hey” he mumbled, “um sorry I’ve drooled all over you”

“I- um it’s fine.” Lance seemed quite mystified.

“What’s going on?” Keith asked. More because he knew he should know, not really because he wanted to know. He wanted to go back to sleep.

“I’m organising one of the most important war conferences in the Quadra system in the past 300 years” Lance said plainly.

Keith wasn’t sure if this made him drooling all over Lance while sat in his lap better or worse.

“Awesome” he said.

Sliding out of Lance’s arms, Keith lay down on the ground with his head resting on Lance’s leg.

“Thank quiznak, my arms were cramping” Lance grumbled.

Keith mumbled in response, though he wasn’t sure what, he was already falling asleep.

####

_Thwack_

Keith’s head hit the ground. The impact forced him awake with pain ringing between his temples.

Lance had jumped up (the reason why Keith’s head had hit the floor) and was standing in front of him.

“- my friends, my _family_ , are up there fighting the Galra right now!” Lance yelled “They are trusting me to represent Voltron in this conference and to keep the peace between you! If you and your people, for you are representing your people, refuse to fight and then have the audacity to disrespect me like this, then you can leave!”

“Are you challenging me, Paladin?!” said a strange voice.

Keith grumbled, he didn’t like them talking to Lance like that.

Hearing this Lance turned around, worried expression fixed on his face. Keith gave him a clumsy thumbs up. He turned back around, speaking with a softer voice this time.

“Yes and I will fight you in a Wyngan duel if _that’s_ what you really want. But now we _do not have the time!_ Listen to me, you’ve been forgotten by Zarkon and left on the fringes of his empire. You haven’t had to fight off the Galra for 10,000 years. You’ve been able to to forget how you once fought together, defending the universe, while other planets have been destroyed.”

Lance took a deep breath.

“Yes, this whole Quadra system has been at war with itself all this time… But I’m not asking you to miraculously forget about all your grudges. I’m asking you to just work together. My friend is still bitter about this one time I ate all of his cookies without asking. But are we constantly fighting over it? No. Can you all work together despite all your differences? Yes. I suspect some of you have already thought about how effective you will be in battle where you all cooperate. We are better _together_.”

The council was silent, none agreeing or disagreeing with Lance.

“Now, I’ll tell you the alternative to all of this. Plain and simple. Die or be enslaved. The Galra _cannot_ be reasoned with and we will not defeat them without working together. I am not going to let myself be killed and I am not going to let myself be enslaved. So I will do all I can to make sure this works.”

Later, Keith might blame it on the drugs, but right now… looking at Lance standing defiantly in front of a council of mismatched aliens, still dressed in that specially made Glalüian armour… Keith decided that this… this was love.

Keith had fallen in love with Lance.

Quiznak.

Two reptilian like aliens, with darting chamelion-like eyes, stood up together.

“The Quebs are eager to form an alliance.” They said in perfect unison. “Not only is this fight the only choice we have, it is a harmonious choice. Harmony in battle is to fight on the winning side. This is what the Queb peoples have always believed and can only be achieved together.”

The Glalüian chief shot up before Lance could reply.

“The people of Glalüy have always held the warriors of Queb in high regard, it would be an honour to fight according to their tradition.”

Lance nodded.

Slowly a tall striped alien rose, flicking their large ears back and forth.

“What you say is true, honourable Blue paladin.” It was the strange voiced alien that had angered Lance earlier. “Although the Glalüy are the warriors the Wynga have despised the most, my people and I will gladly ally with them. Because as you say, we are better together. My only question is… will _you_ lead the fight against this New Galra threat?”

Keith watched as Lance hesitated.

“Well, I fly the Blue Lion so- ”

“Yes” Keith said

Lance whipped around in shock to stare at him.

Keith stared back.

“Lance is a great leader”

Lance’s face turned bright red.

Exhausted, Keith passed out.

####

The next few times Keith woke up he was alone in the tent.

He felt rather useless but he couldn’t stop himself drifting in and out of sleep. It just took too much effort to stay awake for long stretches of time. But eventually (after a lot of mental shouting) he managed to make himself sit up.

Blinking past the head rush, he could barely see anything in the warm room. The only source of light was a glowing blue circle somehow drawn onto the intricate rugs on the floor.

There was Lance’s paladin helmet an arms length away, from it Keith could hear faint shouts and explosions. Reaching out his hand, he felt something pulling at his skin.

He looked down.

Some kind of plaster had been stuck on to the backs of his hands, fixed over some glowing blue cream to prevent it from being wiped off.

It squished around when he poked it.

He now noticed he was still dressed in an Altean healing pod suit. There was a thick rug Glalüian covering his legs and in the dim blue light Keith could see some of the glistening woven patterns, flowering vines that gradually morphed into jagged icicles. It reminded him of the scholars glacier.

Which brought him back to the battle currently taking place _which he wasn’t part of_.

Lunging and clumsily tugging on Lance’s helmet with uncooperative hands, Keith tried to remember why this battle was happenening in the first place.

Licking his dry lips, Keith spoke with a croaky voice.

“Hello- ?”

“Keith!” Hunk was first to reply, butting out Pidge “Buddy! You’re awake again! We’ve been so worried about you for the past weeks, it’s so good to hear you man!”

“Uh, it’s good to hear you too!” Keith answered genuinely if a little confused “It’s even better to be able to actually speak”

“Oh yea I bet, I still can’t believe you were the cube all along! We-”

“Hunk, how’s it going out there” Keith interrupted impatiently “Where’s Red so I can join you?”

Pushing off the rug he tried to stand up.

“Woah Keith, slow down” Hunk said, suddenly serious “You have to move as little as possible we still don’t know the extent of the damage to your nervous system and-”

“Oops” Keith said absently, nearly stood up

“Lie down right now! You absolute quiznak.” Pidge scolded.

“Hello to you too, Pidge”

(Keith didn’t lie down, he stubbornly half-knelt until he knew exactly what was going on and if they were ok without him.)

Pidge laughed.

“Yea well sorry if I’m just worried about your health after being stuck in a biosynthetic- ”

“The point is Keith” cut in Hunk “you need to rest, or at least stay in your healing circle. Don’t worry about us we’ve taken a beating – _oomf_ worse then this before, the battle is practically over now.”

It was surprising how calming and reassuring Hunk could sound while Keith could clearly hear him blasting things apart. (But he was still not 100% assured.)

“Why aren’t Lance, Allura, and Coran hooked up to the comms?”

Pidge answered this time, Hunk sounded busy.

“The castle comms took a bit of damage really early on when we were ambushed-”

“Ambushed?!”

“We’ll tell you everything from the beginning when we finish this yea? But anyway the castle only contacts us – _gah_ when they really need to, to prevent further damage-” the comms crackled “-and Lance can only contact the castle from the Quadra fleet’s main warship”

Confused slightly and with a fuzzy head, Keith inhaled before speaking. Laying down again on the soft rugs probably wasn’t a bad idea.

“Yes and before you ask, Lance is leading everyone like you told him-”

“I did?”

“Yea, you don’t remember? Anyway he’s been doing great.” Pidge drew a breath in and Keith could tell he was about to be asked a barrage of questions through the crackling comms “Which makes me ask what happened? Lance has been acting so weird- ”

“Oh Pidge you’re breaking up, I… hear… sleep… drugs? Must-” he stuttered.

“Oh damn, Keith?! I don’t see a problem with our connection -!”

Keith didn’t hear the end of Pidge’s sentence as he pulled off Lance’s helmet.

He was ridiculously tired, couldn’t stop his foot from twitching, and was sure he was missing bits of his memories (maybe Hunk and Pidge did have a point).

Breathing deeply Keith tried to relax.

If they didn’t need him the best thing he could do was wait.

Half-closing his eyes, he watched the glowing ‘healing’ circle appear to pulse.

It was weirdly comforting.

####

“... I know Lance hung out with them for a week but technically he was in _prison_ ” Hunk was saying “So yea I am a lot more comfortable now that we’re in charge of healing Keith.”

“Ok but you can’t deny that their methods were pretty cool! I wish I’d got more time to talk with that Balzenti dude though...” Pidge trailed off, distracted.

Keith tried to move but he was strapped down. It wasn’t exactly a calming experience. Sleep stuck his eyes together so all he could see was fuzzy darkness until he could be bothered to peal them open.

“This sucks” he groaned.

“Ah! Keith! Yea I bet it does buddy, just stay with us till we can get you back into a pod!” Hunk said, his genuine sympathy so obvious Keith could almost feel it. “It’ll all be a lot better soon.”

“I’d give you that explanation you asked for but we’re almost at the castle now so there’s not much point” Pidge added on “You could try and tell us how much you remember, it might help...”

“Uh where’s Lance?”

This question seemed to take them a bit off guard.

“Er well we haven’t had much contact with him, I mean I don’t even know where he is but I assume he’s alright?” Pidge began to ramble while Hunk spluttered “because surely otherwise, if he wasn’t alright, Coran and Allura would have said something- ”

“But you don’t have to worry! About that! Not right now!” Hunk cut in finally, seeing Keith’s whitening face, “Lance can manage just fine doing his own thing and if he needs us we'll be there in no time at all! Right?”

Keith only had the energy to agree. Finally the backs of his eyelids became too boring and he forced his eyes open, blinking at the blinding lights.

“Ugh so light”

“Yea don’t strain you’re eyes too much, you haven’t used them much recently.” Pidge said softly “How’s your memory of things?”

“Um... Well”

They juddered to a stop and Coran's voice crackled through the speakers. Between his rattled brain and Pidge’s sudden insistent whispering in his ear, Keith didn’t hear much of what Coran said. (It was comforting to hear his chipper voice again though)

 “This could be important, Keith, how much can you remember? Glalüy, the castle-?”

“Uh not much?” Keith squeaked.

Pidge swore.

What did she expect at the minute? He’d barely just woken up from a pretty traumatic experience.

As they carried Keith out of the ship, careful not to jostle him more then he already had been, they directed a worried stream of questions at him. It was uncomfortable to say the least, he was unavoidably the centre of attention. (A position he’d never learnt how to handle).

Now he was so anxious he could feel tingles in his hands and feet. It was quite painful actually. He had pins and needles.

Wiggling his fingers only made things worse, static climbing up the nerves in his arm.

It was hard to think around the buzzing pain and Keith barely managed to hum an answer to alarmed questions. He scrunched his eyes shut.

“Oh Lance! Thank god you’re here” Hunk exclaimed brightly in Keith’s ear “Help me lift Keith into the pod, he’s in bad shape.”

Keith didnt hear Lance's reply but he was glad. Lance was actually here now. Unfortunately he could not grab Lance and ~~kiss him~~ tell him how awesome he’d been. He pealed one eye open to get a quick look.

He was still in his Glalüian armour. It looked like he’d run here, his face was sweaty and red.

A fresh wave of static flowed up his arm (his hand must have twitched) and Keith squeezed his eyes shut again.

“How bad is bad?” Lance questioned, almost speaking directly into Keith’s other ear. (He was that close _if not for these damn pin needles_ \- )

“We think he can remember almost nothing of what happened,” a small, relieved sigh escaped Lance’s lips “but he’s also not very responsive so we could be wrong. I mean just look at his face, Lance, something is really hurting him.”

Hands, most likely Lance’s (as Keith brain helpfully supplied) since Hunk was still gripping his shoulders, started patting him down.

“Pins and needles” Keith hissed.

Lance started massaging (neck, arms, calves) easing his muscles through the pain. Which just felt heavenly. Keith couldn’t stop a groan slipping out of his mouth.

“Keith how you doing? That better?” Hunk asked him, gripping both his shoulders as Lance snatched his hands away as if they were burnt.

Keith peeled his eyes open, adjusting to the light just in time to see the med-bay doors close in front of Lance's hastily retreating figure.

“Yea, better” he mumbled.

Hunk turned from looking doors behind him, frown morphing into a comforting smile that automatically made Keith smile back.

“Brilliant! You’ll be back to normal in no time. What was that anyway?”

“Um, pins and needles?”

Hunk laughed.

“Seriously bad pins and needles, huh?” Keith nodded gingerly, soft smile echoing Hunk’s. After a brief pause, Hunk continued, brushing imaginary dust off Keith’s shoulders.

“Right, you just close your eyes again, get nice and relaxed ready for Coran to start the pod”

“Is Lance okay?” Keith asked instead.

“Wha-? Why...? I mean um yes? I think he’s just a bit stressed y’know? Still in battle mode! Well honestly he’s probably feeling quite guilty about getting you into this mess too... hopefully he won’t avoid you for too long eh? No hard feelings anyway right?”

“Oh definitely, no hard feelings at all”

Hunk squinted at him.

“That wasn’t sarcastic was it?”

“What? No! I’m serious. No hard feelings.”

Hunk sighed in relief.

“Cool, that’s good. And anyway if you’re ever sarcastic, you can’t be the real Keith.” He laughed.

Gasping in mock offence, Keith managed to clumsily place his hand over his heart.

“Me? Sarcastic? Never”

Hunk stared at him in shock.

“Right!” shouted Coran, bursting into the room and flouncing over to the control panel.

“Step away Hunk, lets get Keith fixed up as soon as possible!” He yelled, typing furiously “Okay, you know the drill Keith! Lights out in... Three! Two! One-!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thats a wrap!!! (isn't Coran fabulous?)  
> Drew on my experience of general anaesthetic after appendicitis to write about Keith waking up but I mean its not the best source coz I don't remember half of what happened lmao (neither will Keith tho...) Yea and you can bet your ass I'm cackling at this chapter!  
> Lance is a great leader... but will he pilot the black lion???
> 
> Anyway now I've hit you guys up with a double-wammy, I did promise I wouldn't leave you on that cliffhanger for long, I've srsly gotta get back to work! (any kudos and comments will be graciously accepted as bribes for me to give you more of dat delicous content faster so pls give me love)  
> also I still haven't seen s4 rip


	7. I'm three ounces of whoop-ass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao waddup ma dudes, despite all evidence that points to otherwise, I am actually still alive! Wahay! School ain't got me yet lol  
> Anyway, here's this, enjoy it and pls scream at me if I don't remember to update fast enough sorryyyy xxx

_“Hæe’s ѱɒkinɓ џƤ” cried a strange voice. “Ɵi! Ɠeƭ Ɣoůr άƹƹ øvƏr hƏƦe Ħolƭ!”_

####

Tumbling out of a freezing healing pod was definitely one of the less gentle way of waking up. Especially compared to (what Keith assumed was) a Glalüian healing circle.

However, tumbling out surrounded by relieved and delighted friends was a hundred times better than waking up alone even if Keith couldn’t make head nor tail of the babble of voices talking over each other, as they helped him walk towards the nearest seat. He grinned anyway because hearing the mish-mash of familiar chaos was comforting and giddying at the same time.

“Any tingling anywhere? Can you wiggle your fingers and toes? How does your neck feel?”, Coran finally managed to shout over the others, mainly Hunk who was asking about what food Keith wanted to eat.

“No ‘tingling’” Keith answered, “but I’m pretty cold?”

Coran laughed with relief while Hunk fluttered away to grab as many blankets as he could. Clinging to his arm, Pidge began chattering about the mechanics of the cube and how worried they’d been of it’s affects on his nervous system. Keith tried to follow as best he could but half of his attention was drawn to the weird looks and meaningful nudges Allura was giving Lance.

Hand barely touching his shoulder, Lance sat down next to him, opposite Pidge.

“I, um… I’m I’m really sorry for um trapping you? In the cube, that is, trapping you in a cube… so um sorry.” Lance stuttered out.

Keith couldn’t tell if Lance was nervous or just embrrassed, but he had never seen him stumble through a sentence like that. Ever.

Vaguely Keith noticed Allura nodding in approval.

“Er, I’m” he squeaked, then coughed (horrified by the sound).

“Er I mean it’s fine!” he continued, relieved his voice had returned to the normal decibel range, “I guess it’s a good reminder for us all to be more careful huh”

Trying to give Lance his best smile, he was sabotaged by Pidge’s indignant squawk.

“The Reckless Red Paladin!!! Relies more on instinct than skill alone!!? Telling everybody to be more careful???”

Keith scowled at her. It did nothing to help.

He was about to reply when Hunk suddenly buried him in blankets from behind, muffling the sound of the team’s chuckles.

“Guys! You’re being so mean to Keith!” He mock scolded, uncovering Keith’s head from the pile “He needs care and attention right now!”

Keith began to protest but was magically muffled by blankets again.

“Look at this muffin!” Hunk continued, wrapping his arms around Keith’s head, “C’mon pickle pie, I’ll give you the love you need”

Pidge was in tears, gasping for breath.

“I need love too!” Lance wheezed “I’m the number 1 boy!”

“No” Hunk said solemly “Keith is the number 1 boy now”

Alarmingly, Keith was scooped up into a full bear hug and pulled into the air, legs dangling out of the blanket pile he was trapped in.

“Aren’t you sprinkle toes?”

Keith couldn’t stop himself giggling now. He blamed the sight of Lance an Pidge wailing with laughter on the floor. He had no idea how Hunk managed to keep a straight face.

“I don’t understand Earth humour” Coran said.

####

Keith didn’t understand how Hunk had raided the Blade of Marmora’s ship-kitchen, but the food was so good he could cry. (Talking about the Blade he had some questions to ask them…)

After swallowing down the first plate in record time, Hunk frantically set about trying to keep up with the speed he was eating at, leaving the Allura to fill him in on what he’d missed with additions from Pidge and Coran. Some of which he already knew.

It had surprised him that the Glalüians had actually notified the castle of Lance’s ‘arrest’ (not enough for him to look up from Hunk’s masterpeice for long) But the team hadn’t been able to group together before they’d suddenly been contacted by the Blade of Marmora warning that their plan to slowly transform the Galra Empire, spreading news of Zarkon’s death, had been foiled by the arrival of some Prince.

Someone called Lodour or something like that. Keith had missed the name because Hunk had placed a third (or fourth) bowl in front of him and he’d been a bit pre-occupied.

Then Slav had interupted the call from the Blade to update them on a breakthrough he’d had with alternate realities. Slav had demanded they meet him at his lab and they’d only gone when they were sure that Lance would be safe. Meanwhile a member of the Blade flew out to meet the castle (unfortunately the cut-off call had them worried) unknowly tracked by a loyal follower of the Lokor guy.

A few battles and worm-hole jumps later, the Castle had landed on Glalüy during Lance’s duel, fighting off the scouting fighters that had trailed the Blade member. And just in the nick of time. (If they had arrived any later they could have lost him).

Here Keith had lost some of his ravenous appetite and paused to absorb the information.

An envoy of the Scholar had informed them of the cube’s purpose, a temporary (temporary being less then 24 hours) container for a concious mind. An idea pioneered by a long-dead Glalüian chief to prevent uneccesary death on stealth missions which, unsurprisingly, didn’t last very long.

They weren’t sure what kept Keith’s conscious deteriorating within the cube’s overworked system.

When Lofers full force fleet had arrived, the scholar had convinced Allura (much to her surprise) to leave Lance to take care of Keith and organising Quadra’s forces. She practically dragged the others out, a scene which she rather comically recreated in the kitchen by throwing an un-impressed Pidge over her shoulder.

Allura paused to drink a glass of water.

Blinking slowly, Keith addressed the room.

“So how exactly did you get me back in my body?”

Pidge and Coran, sat either side of him, immediately burst into rapid and technical explanations while Allura nodded with them enthusiasticly.

Keith looked at Lance, sat on the table, for help but he only shrugged.

“It had a reverse button?”

Pidge and Coran stopped in the middle of their sentences.

“Well, if you want to put it simply, yes. It had a reverse button.” Pidge quipped.

“What was with the glowy circle then?”

“Oh that…” Lance grumbled while Allura leaped out of her seat in excitement, almost knocking over her cup.

“Fascinating!!! Well of course when we Alteans made contact with the Quadra system we introduced most of our technology. Things like the Balmeran energy exchange ritual, remember that?!”

Keith nodded and Hunk yelled at the mention of the Balmera from where he was, digging in a cupboard.

“Yes! Well the Glalüy, and maybe the others I don’t know yet, have taken the idea of exchanging quintessence a little further, harnessing it for assistence during intense medicinal operations as almost a stabaliser! And in such a controlled and safe way to help keep everything running smoothly.”

“Cool-” Keith began to answer but was cut off.

Allura wasn't finished.

Teetering on the very edge of the chair, she practically beamed as she continued.

“So of course when this was explained I nominated myself to help since, logically, I’m the only one with experience in something like this, but to my surprise! The scholar insisted that Lance was the best choice as he’d already developed a strong connection to Glalüian quintessence!”

Allura paused for a reaction and thankfully Pidge was ready to jump in. All Keith could do was nod with agreeing admiration.

“Yea it was really cool, it reminded me of that Olcari robot I drove” she said sincerely.

Keith looked up at Lance who was trying to play it cool.

“Yea, all in a day’s work” he smirked, acting cool but his bright red ears and glowing face told a different story.

“Wow, yea” Keith mumbled, keeping eye contact with Lance, “pretty amazing”

“Well I think you’ve caught up on all the meals you’ve missed, now” said Hunk, plonking down a huge crate on the table and breaking their eye contact, “If you want more though I can open this box of goodies!  I’ll be opening it soon anyway so...? Want any more?”

Keith glanced down at his empty plate and considered it for a moment.

Pidge snickered and mouthed something at Lance who grinned in reply.

“No, I think I’m good. Thanks though.”

“No problem!” Hunk beamed “Oh you guys were talking about that healing thing right? Did you cover all the times Keith woke up?”

Lance groaned as Pidge sniggered

“Oh that was funny!” said Allura.

Keith had a bad feeling about this.

“All the times...?” he asked quietly.

Coran placed a hand on his shoulder.

“There were quite a few I’m afraid, you were dosed up on painkillers and were as woosy as a grebkruk on a rock”

Leaning back into his chair in horror, Keith stared wide-eyed at Hunk in front of him.

“What did I do?” He managed to say, sounding a little strangled.

“Oh nothing that bad, you don’t need to look _so_ horrified! The first time you woke up, you were fine, delighted to see us, and really happy to be out of the cube and it was the same story every time after but… with a few additions like once, we were asking how you were feeling but you just kept making laser noises like” Hunk broke off trying to stifle his laughter.

“Pja pja pja! Laserrrs!” Pidge imitated “I challenge you to a fight! Pja pja!”

Keith stared at a wheezing Hunk, not seeing what was so funny

“I don’t find that so funny- ” Keith started.

“Oh but wait, you woke up and Coran was asking how your head felt and you said ‘Oh well its being held by Prince Charming here so its doing fine’ and LAnce’s fAce- ” Gasping, Hunk wiped tears from his eyes.

“He looked like he’d downed a whole pint of Nunvil!” added Pidge.

“Nunvil is a lovely tasting drink-” Keith heard Coran mumble under his breath before Hunk began to talk again

 “And then Lance, sorry buddy, spluttered ‘I am not! Well not not, I am! I am charming but not-!”

“Well I am charming” said Lance, looking just as unamused as Keith.

Hunk patted Lance on the arm and continued.

“I am charming, but not your charming!’ he said and you just leant up and patted him on the cheek like this” Hunk demonstrated on a scowling Lance, “and said ‘Shhh Shhh precious potatoe, don’t hurt yourself in confusion’ and fell back asleep drooling on his shoulder!” wheezing Hunk turned to Lance, “He called you a potatoe”

“A potatoe!” wailed Pidge, banging her fist on the table. She had now fallen into hysterics, resting her head on Allura’s shoulder.

Despite himself, Keith was beginning to chuckle.

“This is unfair” Lance whined “I should be treated better then this after getting us out of a tight spot by organising one of _the most important war conferences_ in the Quadra system in 300 years- ”

“Yes you did very well Lance” said Allura

“-while Keith was _drooling on my shoulder_ in front of _all_ the war cheiftains!!!” Lance finished yelling.

“You drooled in front of all of them?” Pidge asked, now leaning on his shoulder.

“I was on drugs!” Keith defended.

“On a more serious note about the war council though…” Lance started.

“Oh what about it?” Allura inquired, trying to shush a teary-eyed Pidge in order to better hear him.

Lance seemed to chew on his words for a while, as if debating whether they were too sour to spit out and ruin the light-hearted mood.

“We really need Voltron, if we expect anyone else to join with us” he finally said after a nudge from Hunk “It was hard convincing them to throw in their lot with us, in the end I had to rely solely on my charm.” Lance winked at Allura, making Keith scowl, “If we try to win over more allies… they’ll all want to follow the legendary Voltron and we don’t _have_ Voltron anymore…”

Keith felt like his stomach had dropped down into his feet. The whole business with the cube had driven the paladin-shortage predicament (and his grief at losing Shiro… again) right out of his mind.

Folding his arms across his chest, he frowned at the table, as if he could squash down the guilt and grief there that was welling up there. There was a fine line to tread in case in all exploded out of him.

“We don’t have Shiro anymore, I’d say that’s the more important thing” Keith muttered. (clearly treading the fine line very well)

It seemed like 10 tonnes had suddenly dropped on everyone’s shoulders.

“I… I know it may be hard to consider-” Allura said hesitantly, standing up to face them all, the 4 remaining paladins at the table “- but we may have to let the black lion choose a new pilot.”

Keith felt sick.

His hands started shaking so he hid them beneath the table.

(He would be chosen, he would have to lead, Shiro would be replaced.)

“No.” he rasped “No… I’m going to find Shiro.”

“Keith- ” Lance began but he ignored him, shoving his chair back he stood angrily.

“I cannot give up on him!” he shouted.

Everyone stared at him in shock. He could see in their eyes they were hurt by his outburst.

“he… he never gave up on me.” Keith managed to stutter. A meek attempt at trying to explain himself, before the heavy gazes became to much and he rushed out of the room.

####

He did have it planned, what he was going to do as soon as he was back in his body (eat, sleep, fly Red, train, talk to Lance).

And he had sort of stuck to it.

He’d eaten (a lot), he’d done enough sleeping before that (because strong painkillers), and he had started walking toward Red’s hangar after bursting out of the kitchen only… he didn’t really want to think about the lions at the moment. About voltron, being a paladin, _leading._

So here he was. On the training deck. Staring at the droid paused infront of him.

He wasn’t as coordinated as he used to be.

The end of their staff remained poised above his heaving chest, centimetres away from thrusting him to the ground before he’d yelled for a break.

Taking a step back, Keith lowered into position despite the screaming agony in his thighs. The healing pod had softened his body up while he’d been in that damned cube. His push-up count was back down to a measly 100.

He breathed deeply into his burning lungs.

The sensation may have been painful but it was the most alive Keith had felt in weeks. Despite himself, he was ecstatic.

“Begin”

The droid didn’t even stumble forward from its arrested movement, simply tucked it’s staff into its side to formulate a new plan of attack.

Keith took the opportunity to dart forward, feigning left.

The droid nimbly avoided him a swept their staff to Keith’s unprotected side, just clipping him as he spun away. Using his moment, Keith twisted back to meet the droids next attack with a mighty clash.

The droid was too strong.

“End training sequence” he grunted, straining against the droid as their weapons locked in stalemate.

The droid disappeared and Keith flopped back onto the floor, exhausted. His arms felt like noodles.

Everything ached. Sweat was trickling down his forehead and the back of his neck with a horrible prickling sensation but Keith was too drained to try and wipe it away.

He was content resting for a while, focusing on evening out his raspy breaths.

It shouldn’t have been surprising, having come out a healing pod a few hours ago, that the sudden burst of intense exercise would trigger another “pins and needles” attack.

Realistically, there was nothing Keith could do, if he moved the static just got worse, he just had to grit his teeth and bear it.

The doors slid open and someone walked in.

“Hey Samurai”

Lance.

“Don’t work yourself to death now we only just got you out that pod”

Standing above him, Lance’s face swam into his vision, easy smile quickly turning into a worried frown.

“Keith are you okay?!”

Taking his silence as a ‘no’, Lance knelt over him, searching for injury.

Infuriated by his own weakness and inability to speak, Keith forced himself to grab Lance’s hand.

He cried out as the static flared and fizzed along his arm, unbearable. It was like his nerves had been dropped in acid, like he could feel invisible knives stabbing into him.

(How could he lead Voltron when he relied so heavily on others?)

“Keith! What is it!? Is it- Pins and needles again? Everywhere?!”

“Yea” Keith ground out “Fuck! Make it stop!”

By some miracle of inspiration (or mind reading) Lance reached straight for the back of his neck, rubbing massaging circles that brought instant yet gradual relief. Nevertheless the release of his fizzing muscles was still mingled so closely with the pain that Keith barely noticed Lance was now practically straddling Keith in order to massage down his neck, shoulders, arms, neck shoulders, arms, neck, shoulders, arms.

Groaning, Keith propped himself up on his elbows.

“That’s… much better, thanks” he sighed, head tilted back.

Lance moved back to his side talking, but Keith was too distracted to hear his reassurances that it was no matter and that he should get this checked out.

Lance had been _straddling him_.

Sat up fully now, Keith busied himself with massaging his legs to hide his growing blush (among other things), simply humming an afirmative for Lance.

Lance sat down next to him and put his hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“What I came here to say to you was that we all miss Shiro y’know? I mean, I remember what a thrill it was to just meet him for the first time! Remember when we both carried him out to the Garrison hospital.” Lance glanced up into Keith‘s eyes for a second, flashing a cheeky smile, “I know Pidge grew up being told stories about him, he was a legend at her house. And he taught Hunk everything he knows about being a pilot!”

Lance stopped and Keith could see him staring earnestly at his face but he avoided Lance’s searching eyes by stoicly not looking from his knees.

“We all miss him as much as you, we’re all hurting right here with you… But you know he would be the first one to tell us that we have to move on, even if he is completely irreplaceable”

Forcing himself to meet Lance’s eyes, Keith leant forward.

“I know, you’re right…” he murmured.

“Of course I am!” Lance grinned.

Keith rolled his eyes (classic Lance).

“… We better start figuring out how to reform Voltron then, huh?”

Lance returned Keith’s small smile with a wide grin, patted him on the leg, and got up to leave.

It was now or never.

“Um Lance?”

He stopped immediately, turning back to Keith and tilting his head to the side questioningly.

“I remember a bit of that library place on Glalüy, you were doing that meditating thing. It seems quite useful so I was wondering if…”

Lance smiled in a surprised sort of way.

“Yea I can help you out with it, find me whenever yea?”

“Uh cool… thanks.”

Shrugging, Lance clicked his fingers, pointed them at Keith, and left.

Keith stared at his toes, not trying to stop the blush creeping up his neck.

It would be a few minutes before he could go find Coran to get this checked out.

####

Coran nodded to himself as he selected the final few samples from the neatly labelled frozen racks.

After double-checking the medical sheet one last time, he finally turned towards the nervous Keith, perched on the edge of a large chair (that had appeared out of nowhere in the medbay), with a warm smile.

Swinging his legs while he waited, Keith felt like a little child again.

“Luckily it’s not permanent damage, you won’t get these muscle-spasm attacks forever! But it will take a while to heal so you should avoid doing too much strenuous exercise. You shouldn’t aggrevate your nervous system too much!”

He nodded reluctantly.

“Now I have got something that will help, however it does have side-effects.” Coran turned back to the assortment of chemicals he had collected in front of him and began to talk while he mixed, filtered, boiled, and carefully dosed out the brightly coloured liquids. (They didn’t look too bad to drink).

“You might get a bit dizzy after taking it. At worst it will be like bad headache with maybe some sensitivity to light or sound, but it should fade away soon enough. If it lasts longer then a few Vagas you must come tell me about it.”

Coran shot a warning glance at Keith who wondered if he was being threatened into taking care of himself.

Satisfied with his final product, Coran withdrew the flask from amist his equipment with a flourish, presenting Keith with a wholly unappetising thick brownish liquid.

“Drink a cup before bed, every night! At least if you’re asleep you can’t mess up its restorative properties by exercising hm?”

Keith winced as he nodded.

####

_“I can’t believe we found you!!! If we hadn’t raided that Galra ship...! But I’m getting ahead of myself, how are you? Y’know I’ve been so worried about you, you've no idea after seeing you go blam blam blam! and- ”_

_“Heh, well I’m fine now as far as I know. Are you sure you can’t untie me?”_

_“Oh... Yea. I’m sure, I really can’t so uh sorry... About that.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm so tired. if you liked this, even a little, hit that kudos button to let me know (please)


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